


Eye of the Storm

by colobonema



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Parallel Universes, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Redemption, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Sorceresses, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colobonema/pseuds/colobonema
Summary: Three years after the defeat of Ultimecia, Rinoa’s magic has spiraled out of her control and destroyed everything she fought for. But perhaps the fabric of reality can be reshaped, and a world completely cleansed of sorcery may bring back what she has lost…
Relationships: Rinoa Heartilly/Squall Leonhart, Seifer Almasy/Ellone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter I

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter I**

"Rinoa, I know it's still you in there."

"I _know_ it is."

The young man stepped closer, too close, his slate-blue eyes gazing into hers.

_Stay back,_ she thought desperately, as her fingertips twitched and tingled with a limitless power she knew she would not be able to control.

"I'm going to bring you back to me. I promise".

_No Squall, don't,_ she screamed silently in her mind, as he placed a hand on her bare shoulder.

His face, that beloved face more familiar to her than her own, was far too close now, and the throbbing at her fingertips increased until it was almost all she could feel. _Nononodon'thurthim I'llstopyouI'llstopyouIwon'tletyou,_ she shrieked inwardly as a cold, cruel voice spilled out of her lips.

"You're no longer any use to me, Knight."

The man's eyes widened in shock as the lightning that pulsed from her fingers surged straight into his heart.

* * *

Rinoa's chest heaved with hysterical sobs, as she struggled to open her eyes. A heavy pressure informed her that her arms and legs were restrained tightly. Through the tears she could see a gleaming white room, medical equipment, and a man. Long hair falling in front of his eyes. Laguna, she thought dimly.

"They said you were screaming his name."

Laguna's voice was harder than she'd ever heard it, and his expression was guarded and cold. Rinoa was suddenly struck by how much he resembled his son when she'd first known him. His son… his son… Squall.

She felt a cold, sick emptiness grow within her as the realization returned. Squall, dead in her arms. Squall, dead at her own hands.

"So which one of you is in there now?" Laguna asked, his eyes fixed on hers, as if trying to read something from her face.

Rinoa tried to speak, but nothing came out. She breathed out one last juddering sob, then tried again. "It's me. I mean, I'm in control of myself again, but I don't know for how long."

Laguna gazed at her for a long moment, then his hardness seemed to soften slightly. _He believes me,_ she thought.

"Please, Laguna… kill me. Please."

Laguna sighed and shook his head. His eyes were red, and his preternaturally youthful face suddenly seemed so much older than when she'd last seen him.

"Can't do that. Your magic will just be inherited by someone else as soon as you die, and the power will only grow stronger with each generation. We can't allow that, Rinoa. We're going to seal you in the Sorceress Memorial, like we did before."

Rinoa felt panic rising up in her. "No, it won't hold me anymore. It won't. I'm far too powerful now. I'm much stronger than Adel ever was. I'll break free as soon as the magic comes back. I know I will."

Laguna looked at her with more than a shadow of misery in his eyes. "You may be right, but what else can we do?"

Rinoa looked away. "I don't know. I just want you to kill me. I deserve it. Please."

Laguna sighed again. "You know we can't. It won't achieve anything."

_Apart from ending my pain,_ thought Rinoa emptily. She looked back at Laguna, who seemed to have tears forming at the edges of his eyes.

"Laguna? What happened to… his body?" _You can't even say his name, you coward,_ she thought with a surge of self-loathing.

Laguna's tears spilled out down his cheeks, and she felt the gnawing void grow within her. "A retrieval team from Esthar Garden took him after you were restrained. They had a hard time prizing him from you, even though you were unconscious. You wouldn't let go."

She remembered that. She'd clasped onto him for hours, or maybe even days, screaming, sobbing, weeping, as the corrupted magic left her back in charge of her own mind, for however long until it next claimed her.

"He's being taken to be buried at Balamb, along with Quistis and Zell."

Rinoa looked up at Laguna in horror. "I killed them too?" The abyss inside swelled and threatened to consume her.

"Yeah. You took out about forty SeeDs before Squall got to you. You'd completely flipped."

Rinoa closed her eyes. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ Her dearest love. Her dearest friends. Obliterated by her cursed power.

"I… couldn't stop it. Even with Squall, I could see myself doing it, but I couldn't stop it…" she whispered. She looked up at Laguna again, whose tears were now flowing freely.

"I know that you didn't choose this, Rin," he said thickly. "I can't imagine how much pain you must be in, knowing that you were the one that did it."

"You're probably the only one to see it that way," replied Rinoa dully. But what did it matter now? She didn't care any more if others hated her. No one could ever match the hatred she had for herself.

"Maybe," he replied. "I can't speak for the world, but I don't blame you for what's happened. I… I'm at fault as much as you are." He slumped in his chair.

"How could you be?" asked Rinoa, finding it almost impossible to tear her thoughts away from the image of Squall's cold, unmoving body.

"I was the one who asked you to take Adel's powers in the first place, right?" he replied wretchedly. "I didn't bother to think about what consequences that would have for you. But it's not only that. Right up to when he died, Odine kept warning me to monitor you closely. He thought your magic would get corrupted as time went on because of your exposure to Ultimecia. Said that even though she was defeated, the fact that you were a receptacle for the combined power of all the future generations of sorceresses was enough to warp your magic permanently. I guess he was right." Laguna cast his eyes downwards. "I ignored him. Didn't want to believe it. I couldn't. Seeing the person you were, seeing how much my son loved you…" He broke off, and covered his face with his hands.

Rinoa was silent. There didn't seem to be anything to say that could effect the slightest change onto this hell she had created. She wanted to feel sorry for Laguna, desperately sorry, but all she could find inside herself was emptiness.

Laguna took a deep breath and looked back up at her. "You really think the Memorial won't hold you?"

"I'm sure of it," she replied quietly. "I don't know what you can do, but that won't do anything."

"Can you feel the magic coming back yet?"

Rinoa closed her eyes and tried to feel for her Sorcery. It was there, somewhere, faint but pulsing; but the sickening loss of control and the terrifyingly deep currents of cruelty were not. Yet.

"No. I think the shock of …losing Squall shook up my mind and let me slip back in. But it's only a matter of time, I think." _So kill me, and do it quickly,_ she thought hopelessly.

Laguna raked his hand through his long hair. "Okay. I'll have a team go through Odine's old lab and see if we can find anything at all that might look like another option. If not, I'm still going to go with the Memorial plan." He stood, and reached for the door.

"I'm going to have them put you back under now. I assume you understand that we can't risk keeping you conscious any longer than necessary." He looked at her with an unreadable mix of emotions and turned to leave.

Rinoa nodded, and closed her eyes, knowing that she would welcome the oblivion.

* * *

And yet, oblivion did not come.

_Sorceress_.

Against a dim background of gray - stone? - Rinoa could discern a wispy figure flickering in front of her.

_I know you_ , she thought. _I've seen you somewhere._ But her drowsy mind couldn't place where that was.

_You stood in my tomb once,_ the figure imparted to her, in a sound like rustling leaves.

And then she knew that she had. The Tomb of the Unknown King. Three years ago, before their failed attempt on Edea's life. Standing next to Squall, she had watched with concealed awe as he addressed this ghost of a long-dead ruler as casually as if he were speaking to a shopkeeper.

_Why? Why are you here? And how?_ she asked.

_Spirit is not bound in the same way as flesh,_ the apparition answered. _As for why… I believe there is a way to remove the curse of your Sorcery. I know there is little time before it returns to claim you._

Rinoa opened her mouth, but found herself speechless. The wispy figure seemed almost to sigh.

_You already know that I was a King. Hyne… was my Queen. My wife._

_What? But.. in our legends, Hyne was a man. I mean, a god. A male god. We say that he made mankind, then split his body in half, and left Sorcery to us,_ Rinoa had never exactly taken the old creation myth literally, but to hear Hyne described as female was bizarre.

_Quite an imaginative retelling. The truth inevitably becomes warped and distorted over so many centuries. And it cannot have escaped your notice, Sorceress, that history is always written by men, not women._

Rinoa remained silent. She could not argue with that.

_Hyne was, nevertheless, a woman. She bore me seven daughters, each a Sorceress. My wife was the source of all Sorcery in this world. But she came from another. She was mortal, but akin to what you call Guardian Forces. She crossed from their realm to ours. I was a young man, and I saw her face through a waterfall. She stepped out, in all her resplendent beauty. It is a pity that the day we met did not survive in your legends. She was a glorious sight._

_I… I don't understand what any of this can mean for me,_ Rinoa imparted.

_You have a friend who can visit the memories of others. The sister of your slain Knight. Bring her to the place where my body rests, and…_

Ellone? He could only mean Ellone. But what could Ellone's powers do for a ghost?

_I believe that if she takes you to the moment that my Queen crossed through the waterfall, you could prevent Hyne from ever leaving her dimension._

The spirit's words sunk into Rinoa, as did the sheer impossibility of his plan. _I'm sorry, but we can't. Ellone always said that she could never change the past._

_On her own, or through the eyes of your Knight, she could not. But your nature is different to theirs. You possess the magic of thousands of Sorceresses. Magic only grows and multiplies over the generations. You have become more formidable than Hyne herself ever was. I believe that your powers are strong enough to reach across time and bend reality to your will, as Ultimecia did._

Rinoa's thoughts spun frantically. Could it be possible? Could this be a deranged hallucination, or even some sort of trick?

_Why? Why would you try to help me by telling me how to remove your wife from history?_

A wave of sadness and infinite weariness washed over her as the spirit sighed again. _My Queen did great things. Great things, and terrible things. And the legacy she left on humanity has grown into a curse that corrupts everything it touches. Your pain and suffering called out to me across the ether, amplified by your magic. But countless others have suffered even more. Sorcery has brought only pain to this world. And my role in creating that pain has become clear to me over time. I was always at her side, as her Knight. I did things I cannot bear to remember. My regret consumes me._

The spirit seemed to waver at the edges, and Rinoa again felt a great weariness seep out from his presence.

_I have long wondered why I still linger, so many centuries after my death. I have come to believe that only atonement for my sins can release me from my bond to this world. If you succeed, perhaps my suffering will end along with yours. I ask you for selfish reasons as much as any other._

_I… don't know,_ she thought.

The faint wisps of the spirit seemed to be drifting apart from each other.

_Sorceress, I believe this to be the only way to free this world. Bring the memory-walker girl to my tomb. ...Please… End this._

The gray gloom faded from before her eyes, and Rinoa was alone again.

* * *

Rinoa woke to find herself looking into the fearful eyes of a young Esthari soldier, with the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed into her neck. A nurse in surgical scrubs and a mask stood at the soldier's side, holding a syringe ready.

"Are you -"

Rinoa once more struggled to form words."It's me. I'm myself," she croaked. The gun did not move from her throat. "I need to speak to the President, and Ellone Loire. It… it's important."

"Tell me first," the soldier said, but Rinoa could see the panic flicker in his eyes.

"No…" she mumbled. "It's got to be them. You can put me back under until they get here."

The soldier's gaze shifted to the nurse, who nodded. "Do it now, then," he ordered, and the needle sunk into Rinoa's thigh. She barely registered the pain as her eyes drifted closed once again.

When she next opened them, Ellone and Laguna were sitting on two chairs by her bed. Laguna was wearing different clothes to before, but his exhausted demeanor suggested that he had not slept since then. Had it been hours or days, Rinoa wondered.

Ellone's brown eyes were hard. Rinoa could sense that the older girl did not possess Laguna's all-encompassing empathy. _She probably only sees a murderer when she looks at me,_ she thought.

Ellone spoke first, and her tone was cautious. "Seems like it's her. For now. You'd better talk quickly, Rinoa. Why did you ask for me? I can't take you back to just before you killed Squall, and stop it from happening. You know it doesn't work like that."

"I know that." Rinoa took a deep breath, and haltingly described the visitation from the Unknown King, watching as Laguna's eyebrows rose higher and higher, and Ellone's frown deepened.

Laguna leaned back. "A dream?" he wondered.

Rinoa shook her head. "Definitely not. I don't know if his plan makes any sense, or if he was even telling the truth, but I know that he reached out to me. It was as real as this conversation."

"You've been on some pretty heavy sedatives, though," Laguna reminded her. "They might be messing with your mind."

"No," said Rinoa firmly. "He was here. Or I was there. But it happened." She hesitantly looked at Ellone. "Do you think your power can be used in that way?"

Ellone's brows were still knotted together. "I don't see how it could. A ghost? When I was… when I was being experimented on, they tested how far go back I could go. I was able to go back to decades before my own birth, as long as the person whose memories I was seeing was old enough. But, centuries… into the memories of a spirit? I'm sorry, but this is…" She tailed off, unable to find a word to describe the incomprehensibility of the idea.

Laguna was running his hand through his hair, and Rinoa could almost see his brain firing up. "We've pulled off impossible things before, Elle. It's not much crazier than going into Time Compression, is it? Or blasting Adel into space."

Ellone looked at him sharply. "You're considering this?"

Laguna shrugged, and for a moment Rinoa saw an echo of Squall's mannerisms in his father's bearing. She swallowed painfully. "You don't need to keep me awake while you discuss it. We don't have time before my magic starts come back, right? If you do… if you do decide to go, you can transport me while I'm out and bring me round when we're there. The burial chamber's on an island at the center of the tomb. There were some monsters there when we went, but they were fairly weak-"

Laguna dismissed her explanation with a wave of his hand. "We'll work out the details. I'm Galbadian, remember? Went there plenty of times when I was a cadet. Never saw the ghost, though." He frowned. "I'm not saying we'll do it, Rinoa. I'll put you under, then call a council with Kiros and Ward. And you too Elle. This is going to be down to you, after all."

Ellone's features were set in a grim line. Rinoa could see that she thought that Laguna was already half-sold on the idea. "If it doesn't work, or you don't want to try it, just do whatever you choose. Kill me, freeze me, build another space station. I don't care." She laid her head back on the bed, suddenly weary.

Ellone caught her eye uncomfortably and looked away. "Laguna, call the nurse in," she said quietly. "Let's get her back to sleep."

* * *

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Rinoa's awareness seeped back into her sluggishly, as something cold and metal rapped lightly against her temple. Her eyes slowly opened to focus on Ellone's wary gaze. "She hasn't turned yet," the older girl announced, as she withdrew the metal object and looked down to fumble with something at her belt.

Rinoa's vision slid over to the gray stone walls of the Tomb of the Unknown King, covered with sprawling carvings of ancient glyphs, and she squinted as she took in the square of bright sunshine streaming in from the small skylight above.

"Stand down, men," came Laguna's voice from behind her, sounding out of breath. Rinoa turned to see the four armored Esthari soldiers standing at the back of the chamber bring their guns down to their sides, and in front of her Laguna with his arms braced against his knees, panting.

"Carried you," he huffed, in way of explanation. "Gave me a new respect for Squall, gettin' you all the way to Esthar from Fisherman's Horizon by piggy-back. That son of mine's sure got…" He realized what he was saying, then looked away bitterly.

"I told you to let the troops take her," said Ellone tersely.

Laguna shook his head. "No. My responsibility." Rinoa could not make out his expression in the gloom.

She looked over to Ellone. Squall's sister had two handguns strapped to her waist and was wearing a white ceramic armored vest over black clothes. Rinoa realized that it must have been the hilt of Ellone's gun that had jolted her awake.

Ellone's expression was grim. "Do you feel your powers returning?", she asked Rinoa in an impassive voice.

"Not yet." she replied. "But as soon as you see me start to look like I'm changing, kill me."

Ellone shook her head. Her tone was subdued, but her eyes were stony. "If you die here, your magic will pass to me." Her jaw set in a way that reminded Rinoa of Squall. "And there's no way I'll let that happen."

"Those guys have tranquilizer guns," said Laguna quietly, gesturing with his head at the soldiers standing at the back of the room.

"That won't be enough," said Rinoa, feeling her fear growing. Would her Sorcery come back suddenly, and Laguna and Ellone both be lying dead at her feet within minutes?

"Then we'd better act fast," said Ellone, without emotion. "This is the casket, isn't it?" She gestured at the stone coffin at the center of the room, the lid slightly ajar. "It's open."

Rinoa nodded. "When we came three years ago, we freed him from his coffin after we defeated the GF that was here, but I don't think the King left the tomb itself."

_I am here._

She felt him before she saw him, a soft haze that dissipated under the ray of light from above.

_Are you prepared? Time is against us._

Ellone was gazing up at the Unknown King, her mouth half-open. "I don't know how to… forgive me, but well, you have no body…"

"You see somethin' there, Elle?" Laguna asked from behind. Evidently, the ghost had only made his presence known to the two women.

_In your usual way, Memory-walker. I do not need a body to open my past to you. My memories are all that is left of me._

Rinoa watched as Ellone seemed to take a deep breath, and then in an instant found herself blinded by bright sunshine, a brisk breeze whipping her hair around her face.

She and Ellone were standing on a grassy bank beside a fast-flowing river, with a slender, impossibly long waterfall splashing down from reddish-brown rocks that towered far above, many times higher than the tallest trees.

"You did it, Elle," said Rinoa, half disbelievingly. The stunned look on Ellone's face told that she felt the same.

Rinoa could not make out the dim wisps of the Unknown King's spirit in the dazzling sunlight, but she felt him at her side. "This is your past?" she asked, wonderingly. "I've never seen a place like this anywhere."

_You stand before Heaven's Gate Falls on the old Centra continent,_ he replied. _These lands lie under the sea now, but in my lifetime this was the longest waterfall in the world. In our oldest legends, the barrier between realms was said to be thin here. My curiosity led me to visit this place._

Rinoa saw that Ellone had turned around, and followed her gaze to see a huge, creamy yellow chocobo slowing its pace, with a young man sitting astride. He dismounted with ease and knotted a rein attached to the chocobo's neck firmly around the trunk of a tall cedar tree. The man was handsome, with sandy blond hair and a closely-trimmed beard, and was dressed in simple robes of a style Rinoa had never seen. She watched him as he gazed over at the waterfall.

"Is… is that you?" she asked.

_Yes. A face I have not seen for centuries. I had almost forgotten it._

Rinoa felt a rush of pity for this ghost and his interminable wait for release. The strong-looking youth in front of her was a sight that was impossible to reconcile with the weak strands of light that were now his only physical form.

Ellone spoke, her voice uncertain. "Should I try to send Rinoa's consciousness into your body?"

_No. Do not allow me to see Hyne. My fate was sealed the moment I looked into her eyes._

"But, we need to possess someone's body to move around in the past. We can only observe like this. That's how my powers have always worked…"

_Hyne is no human. The force of your magic will allow you to interact with her, Sorceress. Go to the waterfall._

"What do I do? Just talk to her?"

Neither the ghost nor Ellone answered, and Rinoa turned her head towards the tumbling, frothy water. The sun was blazing bright in the sky, the air impossibly fresh. How can the distant past feel so much like a brand new day, she wondered.

She walked slowly across the grass, aware that she could feel the thin green blades bending under her feet. _How can that be? Are my feet leaving footprints in the past?_ she found herself thinking, and looked down to see that her boots had left no indentation at all.

She was close to the waterfall now, and felt cool droplets of spray hitting her face. She stepped down to stand on a large rock that jutted out of the pool of water at the base of the falls, and the splashing on her face intensified, as did the rushing sound in her ears.

Her eyes searched the cascading water carefully, looking for any sign of something unusual. Then without warning, she felt an implosion of shock in her chest as the dim outline of a humanlike figure turned slowly around behind the white froth. _I have to do this, I have to do this,_ Rinoa told herself as she stepped, trembling, into the water.

The waterfall, the blue sky and the sunshine all vanished at once, and Rinoa found herself standing, almost floating, in a starlit void. She could feel dread and bile rising in her throat at the familiarity of her surroundings; this was just like the place of her nightmares, of the time she had barely escaped death out in space. And this time, Squall's strong arms would not be there to bring her back to safety.

Rinoa willed herself to focus on her only companion in the void, a painfully beautifully woman with jade-colored skin and thick tangles of green hair like snakes slithering down her shoulders. _Hyne,_ called Rinoa, and watched as the woman's blindingly bright silver eyes locked onto hers. Rinoa fought down the terror that shuddered up from her feet to her legs and lower body.

_You are Hyne,_ she willed herself to say.

The voice that rang back at her was deafening, like a thousand bells chiming at once. _Yes. What creature are you?_

_Human. This realm is ours. I will not… I will not allow you entry,_ she stated, desperately hoping she sounded stronger than she felt.

_Would you defy me, little human girl?_ smiled the woman, and Rinoa's insides twisted at the sheer power that radiated from the being. _How would you try?_

_I carry your powers, strengthened through the generations._

Hyne seemed to study Rinoa's face, fascinated. _You walk in time?_

_Yes. I have returned to this day to stop you from coming here._

Hyne laughed, which was somehow both a light girlish giggle and a hellish churning cacophony of sound. _You tell me that my power will grow through thousands of lives, and you think that will make me turn away? You only tempt me to your realm all the more_.

Something in Hyne's voice called to the dormant magic deep within Rinoa, and to her horror she started to feel her Sorcery rising up, trickling along her arms like warm water. _No! Not now!_ she thought to herself in desperation.

"Hold yourself together." A small, firm voice rang clearly in her mind.

"Ellone?" she whispered back. "Are you here too?"

"I'm with you. In your mind, but I'm with you. Rinoa, you've got to stop panicking," she admonished.

Rinoa's arms trembled violently as the reviving Sorcery crept and swirled under the surface of her flesh. Hyne was watching her lazily from afar. "I don't know if I can keep a hold on my magic. What if I turn it on you and Laguna? Our bodies are still in the tomb, right?"

The calm strength in Ellone's voice served to anchor Rinoa's mind to her jittering body. "It seems to me that you have two choices, Rinoa. You can try to do this, or you can give up and die. Squall believed in you. Prove him right."

Rinoa took a gulp of air, and fought to breath it out slowly. She took a step towards the strange, impossible being in front of her, and forced herself to be the person Squall thought she was. His face as she'd last seen it flickered into her mind for an instant; exhausted, determined, hopeful. _For you,_ she told him fervently. _I love you._

_Hyne. You have one more chance to turn away._

Hyne's lips curled into a terrifying smile. _You amuse me, little one. And if I do not turn away?_

"Now," Ellone was calling to her, and Rinoa let go: she let the magic flow, rise up and spill out. Her Sorcery responded with vigor, pouring and bursting out of her hands as jagged bolts of lightning, searing waves of fire and shards of ice that crashed into Hyne in unrelenting succession. The surprise on Hyne's face was visible only for an instant as her image seemed to tear apart like shreds of paper; then she was sucked backwards into nothingness as if falling out of an airlock, and Rinoa felt herself being dragged forcibly away in the same manner. The next few seconds were a jumble of confusion as she returned to the dazzling daylight in front of the waterfall, where the sky suddenly seemed to be hurtling towards her as the world started to collapse on itself.

The rocks at the top of the waterfall were tumbling and crashing, the trees were shrinking, and the ground shook and crumbled under her feet. Rinoa felt a delicate hand gripping hers with surprising strength - Ellone? - as the rising winds whipped faster around her, swirling into a vortex and screaming painfully in her ears, until the deep, dark oblivion she so craved finally rose up to meet her, dragging them both down, down, unimaginably down, to where there was nothing but silence.


	2. Chapter II

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter II**

Dark.

Dark, and then patches of light.

Her first thought, her first feeling, trickled into her mind. _Gone._

Her Sorcery was gone. She knew it immediately and with certainty, with every fiber of her being. It was as though a veil that had been sitting under her skin, binding her, suffocating her, had been lifted clean away.

_I'm alive. And I'm free._

The realization was enough to encourage her to open her eyes. Soft light seeping in under a fluttering gauze curtain. The infirmary at Balamb Garden? No, no. Her eyes adjusted to what was unmistakably her childhood bedroom at the Caraway Mansion.

On the nightstand beside her bed, the photo of Julia Heartilly-Caraway that Rinoa had always kept there smiled serenely back at her. She curled her hand over her mother's wedding ring threaded on the silver chain that was lying next to the photo. Fingers shaking, she opened the clasp and fastened it round her neck as she did every morning. And yet now… _Only one ring._ Squall's Griever ring was gone.

She blinked away sudden uninvited tears from her eyes, and looked around. The contents of the room were just as she had left them almost five years before. _Am I in the past?_ she wondered. _Before I ran away from home and joined the Forest Owls?_

Rinoa stumbled over to the mirror on her dresser. Haunted dark eyes stared back at her, a helplessly furrowed brow; wildly messy black bed-hair. _No,_ she decided. _I'm not a kid. I still look twenty._

She used her hairbrush to tame the worst excesses of her hair, and looked down absently at her pale blue pajamas. She strode over to the closet and rifled through the clothes in there, some familiar, some not. Unable to locate the powder-blue duster and arm warmers she had loved so much when she was younger, she found a denim skirt and a cream-colored blouse, which were good enough for now, so she put them on.

Rinoa slunk quietly down the stairs, listening out for any indications of her father's presence. She padded through the hall and looked into the lounge. There was no sign of General Caraway. Nor, it occurred to her suddenly, of a dog in the house. She wondered sadly whether Angelo would exist in a reality where Rinoa was still, apparently, living in her family home.

Hearing sounds from the kitchen, she nervously put her hand on the door handle and turned it slowly.

Mrs. Diviney, her father's housekeeper, spun to face her from her position in front of the kitchen sink, a soapy plate in her hand.

_She looks older_ , Rinoa realized. The housekeeper's dark brown hair was definitely flecked with much more gray than she remembered.

"I was wondering when you'd surface. It's past noon, Miss Rinoa!"

Rinoa's mouth fell open of its own accord. She felt like a chastened child. "I… Sorry. I overslept."

Mrs. Diviney pursed her lips in a way that, Rinoa knew from experience, usually prefaced a scolding. " _Overslept_ is what I'd call it if it were ten a.m. Midday is practically comatose. Goodness, what's gotten into you? You're not a teenager anymore!"

_So I'm definitely not in the past,_ Rinoa thought. "I was… I was reading late."

Mrs. Diviney harrumphed. "You're as bad as your father, but at least he wakes up on time. I didn't know if you'd emerge in time for lunch, so I haven't started preparing it yet. I can do you a late breakfast now, if you ask nicely."

"Yes please," said Rinoa meekly. "That would be lovely," she added, with feeling.

Mrs. Diviney rinsed the bubbles from her hands and scurried over to the fridge, while Rinoa sat down heavily in one of the antique wooden chairs at the kitchen table. She watched in a daze as the housekeeper rustled up a simple brunch of scrambled eggs on toast, salad and milky tea, murmuring her thanks as it was placed in front of her. Each bite of the eggs felt like the finest meal she could remember eating. How long had it been since she'd eaten, anyway? Since before it all happened. Before she'd killed Squall. Was that days, years, or centuries ago now?

Rinoa put her fork down as a thought struck her. "Mrs. Diviney? May I have the newspaper?"

"Your father was reading it in his study before he left for work. I'll go and fetch it for you." The housekeeper bustled out of the room and returned a few moments later brandishing the _Galbadian Daily Times._ Rinoa thanked her and stared at the front page, her heart thundering.

The grinning face of Vinzer Deling, a man she had watched Ultimecia choke the life out of through Edea's hands, leered back at her. That was the first shock. The second came as she read the caption. 'President Deling meets with representatives from the interim Government of Timber for the first time since the ex-territory's independence.'

_Independence_. There it was. A few years ago, the independence of Timber had been her life's purpose. What had her goals been since then? To stay in control of her powers, to stop herself from hurting others? She had failed completely on both counts.

_Did this version of me ever go to Timber? Did I just stay here all that time, living off my father's wealth?_

She checked the date at the top of the newspaper: sure enough, it was the same year she had left, six days after Squall's death. Rinoa supposed that she had been kept unconscious in Esthar during the days that had followed. She skim-read the other reports in the paper, mostly local Deling City news, then closed it and excused herself to Mrs. Diviney, making sure to thank her again for the meal. Rinoa then crept into her father's study, crossing the room to scan the titles on the spines of the heavy volumes that lined the shelves on the far wall. She slid out a newish-looking book called 'Warfare in the Modern Era' and begun turning the pages.

It soon became clear to her that the Garden organization did not exist at all. The Sorceress War that took place twenty years ago was instead a normal conflict, triggered by escalating trade frictions between Galbadia and Esthar. Timber had been annexed during that time, as in her own reality. However, the scale of the Galbadian military seemed to be significantly smaller, and she could find no mention of the term 'life-long' in relation to President Deling. It appeared that Deling had been re-elected several times through the democratic process.

Esthar was not, and seemingly had never been, in isolation. The trans-continental express resumed full operation the year after the cessation of hostilities between the two major nations, and had been running uninterrupted ever since. She noted that the Esthar President was now a solemn-faced man called Silas Motion. Without Adel's rise to power, would Laguna even have traveled to Esthar, she wondered? Perhaps Laguna had never been born at all. Then her heart froze as she followed the train of thought to Laguna's son. Had Squall even been born in this world? Had her actions not only killed him, but now erased his entire existence from history?

Suddenly needing some air, she closed the book and left Caraway's study, walking straight out the double doors that connected the lounge to the garden. For a moment she half-hoped she would catch sight of a kennel out there, and Angelo would come bounding up to her in an overjoyed blur of dark brown and white fur. Yet there was only birdsong and the hiss of a sprinkler misting the green lawn. The world had changed, but the season had not. It was a bright early spring day, and nothing about it signaled anything out of the ordinary. How was it that everything looked so utterly normal on the first day of a new future?

Rinoa found that standing was too much effort, and kneeled down in the damp grass. She imagined how Angelo would pad up to her, rest her head on Rinoa's knees and look up at her with dark, mournful eyes. Then she found herself picturing Squall too, his battered leather jacket out of place in this manicured garden, as he leaned against a tree, thoughtful blue eyes gazing far away. _I think I've made a new world_ , she told them both in her mind, _but you're not in it. So where do I go from here?_

"Miss Rinoa?"

She looked up. Mrs. Diviney's head popped out of the lounge doors. "Telephone call for you. A Miss Ellone Oakwright. Will you take it?"

Ellone? The surname was unfamiliar, but what did that mean? Was it another Ellone, whose memories were those of this new reality? Rinoa trotted into the lounge and placed the receiver to her ear, every cell in her body seemingly alert with trepidation.

"Hello?"

"Rinoa?" The tinny voice was unmistakably Ellone's. _But which one?_ she wondered.

"Yes," she replied.

"It's, um, Ellone." Rinoa had a feeling that Ellone was as nervous as she was. Did that mean…?

"Hi. How… how are you?"

"I'm all right." She could hear Ellone swallow. "I was calling because… I guess I wanted to ask you something. Does the name Hyne mean anything to you?"

A wave of relief flooded Rinoa's body. "Yes. Yes it does," she replied firmly.

Ellone exhaled audibly. "Good. Would you like to meet in Deling Central Park? Say in about half an hour?"

Rinoa agreed, and ended the call. If Ellone was here too with her, she wasn't alone in this place. That, at least, was something.

* * *

Rinoa left the gated compound that enclosed her father's mansion, and set off down the wide boulevard that led to the center of the city. It was a route that she had walked countless times in her childhood, but it had been years now since she had even set foot in Deling City. Years, even, since she had walked anywhere alone, without Squall at her side to guard her from attackers and Sorceress-haters. She could feel her pulse racing, even as she saw for herself that no-one was looking at her; no heads were turning to stare at Sorceress Rinoa, no fingers pointing, no hushed voices or screamed insults. Here, she was… nobody. She was a normal Deling City girl out for an afternoon stroll. And the surge of relief, of liberation, of sheer joy was so blissful that she could hardly allow herself to believe it.

When she arrived at Deling Central Park, Ellone was sitting on a wooden bench, already looking at her. Neither of them spoke as Rinoa walked over the bench and sat down.

Ellone looked almost exactly as she had when Rinoa last saw her, mere hours and yet a whole epoch ago, except that she was now dressed more like a suburban secretary than a monster-slayer. She turned her large brown eyes to Rinoa, and this time there was no animosity in them, only apprehension. Rinoa gripped her hand, and as she did she knew for certain that it was the hand that had held onto her as the whole of reality had swirled and reformed around them. "I'm glad it's you," she said, finally.

"Me too," said Ellone at last, and she gave a small, cautious smile.

"How did you find me?"

"I woke up this morning in an apartment I've never seen before, but it's clearly supposed to be mine. When I realized I was in Deling, I went to the city library and spent a couple of hours looking at newspapers and books, trying to work out where or _when_ we've ended up. Now I know that it's exactly as he - the ghost - hoped. Our own world, without the existence of Sorcery." Ellone shook her head slightly, as if in disbelief of her own words.

"In the library, I read that General Caraway still existed. I looked up the number for the Caraway Mansion in the directory and I thought it was worth trying, as a way to find you. I was worried they'd say 'Rinoa who?', or you wouldn't know who I was, but… here you are."

"Yes. My family home's just like I left it years ago, but I don't know what kind of life I'm supposed to have been living there." Rinoa gazed into Ellone's face, almost desperately. "Do you think it's just you and me that know? What the world was before?"

Ellone nodded slowly. "I think so. It's like everybody else's memories have been overwritten."

Rinoa watched as a small dog ran across the park in front of their bench, a furry bundle of excitement. "Do you think it's just temporary, and our memories will be rewritten too?" she asked quietly.

Ellone's eyes were troubled. "I don't know. I don't know anything. But I feel like… when it happened, you and I were in the eye of the storm. Everything changed around us, and we stayed the same."

She clutched Rinoa's hand with a sudden intensity. "Rinoa, is your Sorcery gone?" she asked fearfully.

Rinoa looked at her, surprised. "Yes. Completely. That… that's the whole point, right?"

Ellone visibly relaxed. "Yeah. I was just scared that maybe you hadn't changed. I… I still have my power. I haven't used it yet, but I can feel it there just as it always was. I suppose that must mean that it never derived from Hyne in the first place. There are still other forms of magic in the world that aren't Sorcery. From what I read in the library, there are certainly monsters around, though much less since the Lunar Cry from three years ago didn't happen. GFs seem to exist, on the basis of legends and sightings, but it doesn't seem like there's an equivalent of …Odine Lab to work on harnessing their powers." Rinoa realized that it was still difficult for Ellone to say the name of the man who had experimented on her as a child. "So no para-magic either, I guess," she continued.

Rinoa tried to form the question that had been floating in the back of her mind. "What I don't understand is, why hasn't more changed? With something so big gone, why was I born in the same family, in the same house, why do I even exist?"

Ellone held her gaze solemnly. "I don't know. I've got some feelings about it, though. The way I perceive time… maybe it's different to other people because of what I can do. I feel like, the changes we've made…" Ellone paused, seeming to collect her thoughts before she spoke again. "I see time as taking the path of least resistance, like the flow of electricity or water - those don't travel further than they have to, right?" Rinoa thought about this, and nodded. "I don't think time would go out of its way to change things that didn't need to be changed. Does that make sense?"

"Mostly. I think if anybody understood it, it'd be you, Elle. You sound like you see time almost as something sentient."

"Maybe that's true," Ellone replied thoughtfully. "I feel like it has an agency of its own. But I can't explain why I feel like that." She shrugged and shook her head. "Regardless, I seem to be living a pretty normal life here. As far as I can tell, I've kept my powers secret, or perhaps I never had them in this reality. I'm a waitress at a restaurant on the south side of the city."

Rinoa looked at her in surprise. Ellone grimaced slightly. "I found out at lunchtime when they called my apartment to ask me why I hadn't turned up. I panicked and cried off sick today. Also, the name on my door is Ellone Oakwright. That's the name of my original parents, before Raine adopted me."

She took a deep breath before continuing. "And… Rinoa… there's a photo on the wall in my apartment with them in it. Much older than when they were killed. And there's three boys. My brothers, I would assume. The thing is…" she trailed off and met Rinoa's eyes with a serious, almost nervous expression. "One of them is Squall."

Rinoa's breath caught in her throat as the pit of her stomach fell away. "Squall?" she whispered.

"I don't know how, but it seems he's still my brother. My guess is that instead of Raine taking me in when my parents died, they took Squall in when she died."

Rinoa reeled at this. Could she dare to let herself think that Squall might be alive in this world?

"Do you think he's still -"

"Just because I have a photo of him doesn't mean he hasn't died in this reality, too," Ellone frowned. "My parents too. They could all still have died, but for different reasons. What we did… it reshaped people's lives, but I don't see how it can have brought back people who were already dead." She met Rinoa's eyes uneasily, and Rinoa felt hot shame and guilt rise up in her gut.

"Ellone, I'm…" she began, and her voice stuck. The words wouldn't change anything, but she needed to say them. "I'm so sorry."

"I know you are," the older girl said quietly. She looked away and was silent for a few moments.

The headline from the newspaper suddenly popped into Rinoa's mind, and she gasped in realization. "Elle." Ellone turned to look at her. "Vinzer Deling's alive here. He should have died three years ago, but he's still in power."

Ellone's eyes widened. "Of course. You're right."

"Then… that means it's possible for Squall and your parents to be alive, right?" said Rinoa, hoping fervently that what she was saying could be true.

Ellone broke eye contact, her brow furrowed. "I don't know if we should pin too much hope on it yet. But I think we should try to find out. The photo I have seems to be fairly recent. It looks like it was taken in the town square in Winhill. I'm going to try going there. Would you… would you come with me?"

Rinoa almost couldn't take the sincere, almost pleading expression on Ellone's face. "After everything… You'd take me with you?" she breathed, watching Ellone's eyes.

Ellone held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away. "Your Sorcery's gone, everything we knew has gone and… I've got no anger left for you now. Maybe anger wasn't it, anyway. Afraid of you, yes. I've been terrified of you for the last year. But rationally, even I could see that you had no more control over yourself than Matron did when she was possessed. Also…" She sighed. "I know how much you loved my brother." Rinoa's eyes started to well up with tears. She hadn't realized just how keenly she craved Ellone's forgiveness.

Ellone looked down at her hands. "And I figure that all you and I have right now is each other."

"I think so, too," said Rinoa, and hesitantly covered Ellone's hands with one of her own. Ellone flinched ever so slightly, but didn't pull away, and Rinoa was grateful for that.

* * *

After returning from the park, Rinoa ate a quiet dinner with Mrs. Diviney, helped to clear the dishes away, and stayed up for the next few hours reading in Caraway's study.

She was so absorbed in reading an old article about postwar reconciliation between Galbadia and Esthar that she did not hear the door close quietly, and it was only the faint aroma of whiskey and pipe tobacco that alerted her to the fact that Caraway was now standing in the room.

Rinoa froze. How long had it been since she'd seen her father? It must have been at least two years. She'd met with him only once after the battle of Ultimecia, and the reunion had been brief and uncomfortable. It had been Quistis, of all people, who had urged Rinoa to attempt a reconciliation after she had been dispatched on a SeeD mission to assist the Galbadian Army with containing a monster outbreak on the outskirts of Deling. Quistis had returned full of admiration for Caraway's leadership qualities, and Rinoa secretly thought that her father was probably the serious blonde's type, as disturbing as the idea was.

"You haven't visited this room for a while."

She turned round at the gravelly sound of his voice. The general was standing before her in his army uniform, tall and solemn as ever. Caraway was much as she had last seen him, albeit perhaps with a little more gray hair around the temples, and deeper lines etched on his face.

"Sorry. I was just reading something. I should have asked first."

"I'm not chastising you, Rinoa."

There was a warmth in Caraway's eyes that she could barely recall seeing for years, perhaps since her childhood. He took a step towards her, and she involuntarily took a step back. He frowned, and for a moment his large brown eyes looked like Angelo's when she had been reprimanded but couldn't understand why. Confused, and sad. She felt a rush of pity for him. Pity for her _father?_ What was happening to her?

She felt flustered, and tried to explain herself. "Um… the whiskey smell is a little strong, that's all."

Caraway sighed, but his frown vanished. "Ah. I see. It was a long card game. We rather lost track of our consumption."

He didn't seem particularly drunk. She nodded. "Did you win?"

He raised his eyebrows slightly. "Of course."

"I'm surprised those old guys still play with you. You must have taken all their good cards years ago."

"I let them win sometimes, just to give them a little hope to cling on to." His eyes creased into a smile, and Rinoa wondered how many years it had been since she'd seen such an expression on his face.

She stood in silence, uncertain how to respond to this unfamiliar man.

He seemed to sense her awkwardness, and nodded at her, the smile still lingering. "I have some paperwork to do in here, if you don't mind. You're welcome to stay and finish your book."

_That would be weird._ "No, I'm all done. I'd better be getting to bed soon."

Caraway looked slightly disappointed for a moment, then reached forward and actually _patted_ her on the shoulder. "Goodnight then, Rinoa."

"Goodnight," she mumbled, feeling his eyes on her as she left the room. Rinoa climbed the stairs in a haze of muddled confusion, which gave way to sleepiness as she settled into her bed, wondering about Squall, about her father, about herself; each one so familiar and yet now, complete strangers.


	3. Chapter III

**Chapter III**

* * *

Three days later, Rinoa stood waiting for Ellone at Deling City's central bus terminal, clad in a warm coat in anticipation of the cooler climate in the mountainous region where Winhill lay, an overnight bag clasped in one hand.

She had spent the bulk of the past three days slowly reading her way through the books in Caraway's library, trying to glean an overview of the history of this new world. She had pored over maps, too, and found a military training camp in the former location of Galbadia Garden, a luxury hotel where Balamb Garden had been, and a ski resort in the site that had previously been occupied by Trabia Garden. A further discovery was that the Tomb of the Unknown King did not seem to exist on any map at all. Rinoa's stomach lurched at the sense of finality she felt then, at the knowledge that there was no possible way to reverse what she and Ellone had done. Of course, she knew it was nonsensical to yearn to return to a world in which she'd murdered her lover and her friends; but she felt a curious sense of loss all the same. Now she was set adrift in this new reality, where she would always be lagging one step behind everyone else.

Her interactions with Caraway had been limited to exchanges of pleasantries over the breakfast table. Rinoa was still trying to gauge the closeness of their relationship, but was finding it difficult due to her father's customary lack of expressiveness. He was certainly less angry in this new world, she thought. The question of why he accepted her living in his house, seemingly unemployed and useless at the age of twenty, was one that nagged at her, though she hadn't yet decided how to bring it up.

She broke out of her thoughts when Ellone appeared at her side, slightly out of breath, her neck wrapped in a bright green woolly scarf. "Sorry I'm a bit late. The last of the lunch customers took their time leaving. The bus is already here, let's get on."

Rinoa followed Ellone as she boarded the bus and took a seat next to the window. Ellone sighed and pushed the recliner button immediately, then tutted in frustration at the negligible difference it made to the angle of her seat.

"How has your job been?" asked Rinoa, as the bus engine rumbled to life and the streets of central Deling started to move past the window.

Ellone grimaced in response. "The first shift, I got chewed out for forgetting my uniform, and the chef got irritated with me for not remembering the different menu items and the table number system. In the end, I told them I hit my head on Sunday and it caused some temporary memory loss. The manager rolled his eyes at that, but at least they started explaining things to me like I was a moron. By the second shift, I was starting to pick things up." She gave a small smile. "It's actually kind of nice having a normal job. I could never have imagined it before."

Rinoa found it hard to picture Ellone taking orders and carrying stacks of dishes too, but didn't say so. "Did you call Winhill first, to let them know we're coming?"

"No. I couldn't find where I kept the number. Either I've got a phone book I can't find, or I just memorized people's numbers. I guess I wouldn't need to write down the phone number of my family home. I would have known it by heart since I was a kid." She shrugged. "We'll just have to turn up."

Rinoa watched silently for a while as the suburbs of Deling gradually thinned out and the bus turned onto the road that led to the South Galbadian Expressway. "Do you remember them? Your parents, I mean."

Ellone blinked a few times before answering. "Not consciously. When I was younger, I tried to use my power to look at my memories of them, but a toddler's memories aren't formed properly… so it was just… fragments." She swallowed. "Then I got better at it, and I stopped, because I was scared I'd see them being killed, and I couldn't face that."

Rinoa squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry, Elle," she said. "This is going to be so strange for you."

"I'm glad you're with me," replied Ellone quietly, and Rinoa felt simultaneously ashamed and glad that the older girl could say that to her.

Ellone's eyes were fixed out of the bus window, lost in thought. "Rinoa, could you do me a favor?" she frowned. "If they're alive, and we find them... Would you ask them all kinds of basic questions about my family? I can't exactly ask what my own brothers are called."

"Of course."

The bus gathered speed after passing through the toll gate for the expressway, and Ellone began to doze off, the frown finally melting away from her sweet, heart-shaped face. Rinoa didn't sleep, but allowed her thoughts to drift off in a multitude of directions as the four-hour journey slowly passed by.

She had to wake Ellone when they eventually arrived in Winhill in late afternoon, and both girls disembarked in something of a groggy daze. Rinoa inhaled deeply, relishing the crispness of the unpolluted air. Ellone and Squall's hometown lay nestled among gently rolling hills with gray mountains in the distance, the last of the year's snow still lingering stubbornly on their white peaks. There were orchards of apple trees bursting with pale blossoms, clumps of daffodils brightening up the roadside with vivid yellow, and meadows of wild flowers stretching into the distance. Rinoa sighed in appreciation. She'd always liked Winhill, but Squall had been understandably reluctant about visiting the place that had only been a source of sadness in his family history.

Ellone wordlessly set off towards the town square, Rinoa following as she took in the sight of the old-fashioned buildings, cobblestones and dirt paths of the town. The Winhill that Rinoa knew had several houses that were riddled with bullet holes after Adel's brutal search for a successor. She could not see any sign of those holes now.

Ellone came to a halt outside the house next to the pub, a modestly-sized family home with blackened oak beams and a broad wooden balcony. This was the house that Squall said Laguna had lived in, Rinoa recalled. She was dismayed to see that it had fallen into a state of disrepair. The window boxes she had once seen filled with flowers and herbs were now empty and cracked, and the house's door and windows were boarded up with thick planks.

She snuck a look at Ellone. Squall's sister bore almost no expression on her face and her eyes were dry, but Rinoa could nevertheless feel the waves of pain and disappointment radiating from her.

"I guess it happened after all… Just in a different way," Ellone said in a voice that was almost inaudible.

She bowed her head in defeat. Rinoa moved to put her arm around her, then turned at the sudden sound of a group of children running across the square.

A freckled brown-haired boy with a black schoolbag slung across his shoulder stopped in his tracks a few feet behind them and openly stared. _I forgot how unused to strangers they are here,_ thought Rinoa, wondering if she should introduce herself.

"Ellie!" he yelped, and Ellone spun round, startled. "What're you doing?" the boy asked curiously, then broke into a sweet smile and grabbed her hand. "Come on."

Ellone gaped at him, unable to resist as he dragged her through the doors of the pub next door, Rinoa accompanying in confused wonder. The pub was a now a cheerful, welcoming place, steeped in colored light streaming in the stained glass windows. Rinoa had last seen it abandoned and dusty, occupied only by Raine's ghost, a cat, and an eccentric artist living upstairs. Now it was filled with the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses. Bustling with patrons even on a weekday evening, it had clearly reclaimed its position at the heart of the Winhill community.

"Daaaaaad!" the boy yelled, with a volume at odds with his small stature. "Ellie's home!"

The stout, balding man at the bar leaned towards them with a broad smile and a wave as Ellone was pushed forward through the throng of customers by the boy. "Hey there sweetie," he boomed, "Why didn't you call? Go up and see your mother. This your friend?" He gave Rinoa a smile and a nod and turned to a patron whose hand remained outstretched, waiting patiently for a beer glass.

"Come _on,_ Ellie," squeaked the boy impatiently, and yanked her arm towards the staircase, Rinoa quick at their heels.

As they emerged from the top of the stairs, Ellone was almost knocked off her feet by a fierce hug from a dark-haired, middle-aged woman of a small yet hefty build. "You silly girl, why didn't you say you were coming?" she fussed as she planted a kiss on Ellone's forehead and stroked the girl's glossy brown bob affectionately.

Ellone's mouth moved up and down vacantly for a second or two; Rinoa was sure she had never seen her eyes so wide. Then she rearranged her dumbfounded features into a slightly pained smile. "Hi… Mom," she said weakly.

Ellone's eyes darted helplessly to Rinoa. "Uh… This is Rinoa Caraway, my friend from Deling. I'm sorry I didn't call first."

"Oh, you know I don't _mind_ sweetie, but if I'd known in advance I would have cooked something a little more special." Mrs. Oakwright released her daughter from her embrace and turned to smile kindly at Rinoa.

"Well, now. I'm Ellone's mom, and this is my baby boy, Robbie." She ruffled his hair, and he shook himself away in indignation. "Mom! I'm _twelve_! You've got to stop saying stuff like that!"

Mrs. Oakwright ignored Robbie's protest, and he stalked away in disgust. "How long are you girls staying for?" she asked cheerfully.

"Just for tonight," Ellone answered. "I've got a shift tomorrow evening, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Rinoa's never been outside of Deling City," she improvised, which Rinoa couldn't help but snort at internally. _I've been to_ space, _dammit!_

She readied her politest tone of voice and smiled at Ellone's mother. "It's so peaceful here in Winhill. I've always wanted to visit. Would it really be all right if we had dinner and stayed the night? I'm sorry it's such short notice."

Mrs. Oakwright beamed at her. "Of course. It'll be lovely having you here, dear. I'll throw a few more potatoes into the stew." She stepped towards the kitchen area. "Ellie, you sit Rinoa down and get her a drink of water. Let me just make a plate up for your dad to have behind the bar, and I'll serve up in a few minutes."

Rinoa took a seat at the Oakwright's dining table with Ellone, and they were soon presented with steaming bowls of stew accompanied by fresh crusty bread with butter. Robbie joined them as soon as the food appeared. Ellone's youngest brother seemed to be in that awkward hinterland between childhood and adolescence, and did not speak much. When he did, his voice frequently cracked. Rinoa found it adorable. Having been sent to an all-girls school, and with no siblings, she'd never really had the chance to witness the process of male puberty in action. It was strangely fascinating.

She found herself thoroughly enjoying the meal. Mrs. Oakwright's stew was the kind of simple, hearty country fare that was a staple for millions of rural Galbadians, but was far removed from the more complicated meals of Rinoa's upbringing. _I would have happily eaten this every day,_ she reflected as she dipped more bread into the bowl.

Rinoa's eyes widened slightly at how Robbie seemed to be inhaling the stew. She couldn't see how he could possibly have time to chew and swallow.

"Robbie, I wish you wouldn't shovel it in like that, especially when we have company," Mrs. Oakwright chided, with an apologetic smile to Rinoa.

"I'm a _growing lad_ ," explained Robbie thickly as he chomped on a piece of meat, and opened his mouth to spoon more in.

"Indeed you are," his mother replied with a mix of fondness and exasperation. "As soon as I make him some new school uniform, he's already outgrown it. Ellie, don't you think he's shot up in height even since you were last here?"

Ellone looked startled for a split second, then her features quickly settled. "Now that you mention it, I guess so," she offered, and studied Robbie quietly. "So how's school going, Robbie?"

"S'alright."

"You have much homework today?" she inquired.

"He certainly does, and he's going to be starting it _straight_ after dinner, isn't that right Robbie?" said Mrs. Oakwright with a meaningful glare at her son. He nodded as he chugged down a glass of water like a pub patron with a pint of ale.

Having finished her stew, Rinoa let her glance wander around the room, her eyes settling on the bookcase in the far corner, which was topped with framed family photos that were - somewhat tantalizingly - too small for her to make out properly. An idea prodded at her like a jolt of electricity. "Would it be okay if I take a look at your family photo album? I'd love to see what Ellone was like when she was a little girl."

Mrs. Oakwright's eyes crinkled into a warm smile. "What a great idea, Rinoa. We haven't looked at those pictures for a long time. Let me get it out of the cupboard." She stood from the table and gathered the now-empty bowls.

"Can I go now?" asked Robbie politely, though his eyes betrayed a silent horror at the prospect of his baby photos being cooed over.

"Yes dear, off you go." Mrs. Oakwright placed a red leather-bound album on the table and opened it at a central page. "Now these take you right back, don't they, Ellie?"

Ellone seemed to struggle to answer, a suspicious sheen glimmering in her eyes. "…Yeah."

Rinoa's stomach flipped over at the incomprehensible sight of a cheerful and unscarred teenage Squall smiling back at her, his arm wrapped around a laughing Mrs. Oakwright, a younger Robbie on Mr. Oakwright's shoulders, all in a flower meadow with Winhill's mountain range in the background. Ellone stood linked arm-in-arm with a freckled youth who was almost her double; the third brother, Rinoa was certain. Her eyes flicked to another picture. Squall was younger, and alone, wearing a scruffy school uniform. There was an unbearably cute photograph of Squall and the unnamed brother at around eight years old, both sprawled asleep on a patch of grass, while a pre-teen Ellone hovered over them with a wicked grin, apparently having filled their hair with daisies. There was even a daisy chain looped around Squall's tiny ear.

Rinoa glanced at Ellone, who had apparently fallen into a state of shock at seeing photographic evidence of a happy childhood that she'd never known laid out in front of her.

"So which brother is which?" asked Rinoa, addressing Mrs. Oakwright, hoping to receive a name for the still-unknown third sibling.

"That's Alexander, and that's Squall," she replied, pointing at each boy in turn. "They're nigh-on the same age, you know. They were always fighting. Drove us mad, didn't it, Ellie? Those boys kept me so busy, I never thought I'd have time for another child. What a surprise it was when little Robbie came along all those years later. You'll probably see Alexander in the morning, he usually drops by with fresh bread. He married the baker's daughter and moved into the bakery last year, you know."

Rinoa turned the page, gazing into her beloved's blue-gray eyes in every shot that he featured in. It was all too strange. "Squall's the adopted one, right? I hope you don't mind me asking, but what happened to his birth family?"

Mrs. Oakwright's mouth curved into a sad smile. "His mother Raine was a good friend of mine. She died giving birth to him, gods save her. She lived in this pub, as it happens, and we moved in a while after she was gone and our family got too big for next door."

"What about his father?"

"Oh, _him_." Her expression darkened slightly. "That Loire fellow. A Galbadian soldier that Raine nursed after he was injured. He was called back up to service before Raine even knew she was pregnant, and didn't come back. We never found out whether he was killed in action or if he just left her." She shook her head. "Poor Raine. He seemed like a nice man, but maybe he had us all fooled. People around here thought the worst, anyway."

Ellone spoke up suddenly. "I liked him though, didn't I? I… I think I remember."

"Yes sweetie, you were always following him and Raine around. You'd never seen a man with long hair before. You thought he was a princess." She chuckled, but her eyes were sad. "He was a dashing fellow, I'll give him that, at least."

Ellone looked uncomfortable, and Rinoa decided to change the subject. She looked back at a more recent photo of Squall, and sighed with exaggeration. "His son is too. Ellone, you never said your brother was so _gorgeous_." Ellone's mother chuckled again. "That he is. He was always a beautiful boy. Those aren't Oakwright eyelashes, that's for sure."

"Is he single?" Rinoa asked impulsively, then found herself dreading the answer. _Please don't say he's married too, please please please,_ she silently begged.

"Your guess is as good as mine, dear. Squall doesn't tell his old mom much about that kind of thing. I don't think he's brought a girl back home since high school. Does he tell you, Ellie?" she said, turning to her daughter.

"Not really," Ellone shrugged, her eyes on Rinoa.

"So… does he still live in Winhill?", Rinoa asked, suddenly nervous. Would Squall walk in the door at any moment?

"No dear, didn't Ellie mention? He's living in the south side of Deling City, not far from her place. He's been working as a carpenter since he left school. Mostly fitting kitchen furniture these days, I think. He's always been so good at woodwork." She gave a proud smile. "He put up all those new shelves behind the bar downstairs when he was fourteen, you know. Did a real professional job of it, too."

Rinoa blinked at this unexpected information, trying to picture her stern, serious Commander Leonhart installing kitchen fixtures, as Ellone hastily said, "Sorry Rin, I didn't realize you'd have the hots for my brother, or I would have introduced him earlier."

Mrs. Oakwright smiled conspiratorially. "Well, you may as well try, Rinoa. I certainly wouldn't be complaining if he brought a sweet girl like _you_ home." Her eyes twinkled, and Rinoa's affection for her blossomed further.

Ellone fidgeted. "Mom, actually this is a little embarrassing, but I forgot Squall's phone number."

The older woman looked up at her, surprised. "That's not like you Ellie, you're always so good at remembering them."

"Yeah… I keep getting the last few digits mixed up." Ellone gave a dramatic sigh. "Guess my brain cells are dying off as I get older."

"Don't be silly, sweetie," Mrs. Oakwright laughed. "I'll get a pen."

As she left the table, Rinoa and Ellone stared at each other, speechless. Rinoa cast her eyes back to the photos. "I can't believe it," she whispered. Ellone merely nodded, still stunned.

By the time Mrs. Oakwright returned with a piece of paper with several digits scrawled on it, Rinoa's emotions had got the better of her, and she could feel the tears beginning to form in her eyes.

Mrs. Oakwright noticed immediately and peered at her, concerned. "Are you alright, dear?"

"Sorry. It's just…" Rinoa searched frantically for a plausible explanation. "I guess I was feeling moved by how close-knit your family are. I'm an only child, and my mom died when I was five, and my dad was always busy… I never knew anything like this," she said, gesturing at the album. As she spoke, she realized that it wasn't a lie at all, and the tears pricked at her eyes a little harder. _But I'm so glad to find that Squall had it,_ she thought, her gaze settling on a photo of a tiny, giggling Squall paddling in a stream, his trousers rolled up to his knees.

"Sorry," she said again, looking up at Mrs. Oakwright apologetically.

The older woman's eyes were full of sympathy, and Rinoa felt a rush of gratitude that this warm-hearted woman had been there to raise Squall in this new, strange world. "Oh, aren't you a darling," Mrs. Oakwright said, and leaned across the table to give Rinoa's hand a squeeze. She looked across at Ellone. "Maybe you girls ought to be getting to bed soon. Shall I make some hot cocoa?"

Ellone's expression had been inscrutable for a while, but suddenly melted into a smile. "That would be perfect, Mom."

"The guest beds in Alexander and Squall's old room are already made up, so you go and show Rinoa where to put her things, sweetie."

* * *

Rinoa was hopeful that the interior of the bedroom that had been Squall's would provide some further insight into his life, but it was immediately apparent that the Oakwrights had repurposed it as a guest room after their elder sons left the family home. The only hint of the previous occupants was a bookshelf on one wall, which was lined with high school textbooks and several volumes of a comic book series called 'Knights of Old Centra', though it was impossible to tell which brother this had belonged to.

Ellone wriggled out of her shoes and flopped down heavily onto the furthermost bed, a colorful patchwork quilt creasing underneath her body.

"Ellie's a little hard to get used to," commented Rinoa quietly, after making sure the door was fully closed.

Ellone grimaced. "It is. It makes me feel like an impostor. But 'Elle' came from when I lived with Laguna and Raine, so it never would have been my nickname in this life. I suppose that even in our world, my parents might have called me Ellie when I was a baby." She blinked and stared numbly up at the ceiling.

"I can't imagine how you must be feeling," said Rinoa, sitting down on the other bed.

"I don't think I can describe it," she replied, after a long pause. Ellone's brow was deeply furrowed. "What troubles me most is Robbie."

"Robbie?" Rinoa wondered what it could be about the cute, shy twelve-year-old that was making his sister frown.

"At first, I thought that what we did rewrote the memories and lives of people that had already been born. But then there's Robbie. A few days ago, he didn't even exist. Is he real? Are his memories real? And there's the other one, too…" Ellone seemed to fumble for the name. "Alexander. Two people who never existed _at all_ have been brought into being. There might be people like them in every town and city around the world. And we did that." She closed her eyes. "I don't know how to feel about it. Proud? Terrified?"

Rinoa lay back on her bed, mirroring Ellone. "I'm not sure the human brain is even capable of understanding things like this. Perhaps we should just accept it and try not to think about it."

"It would have been so much easier if our memories had been rewritten too," Ellone said quietly.

"Hmm," Rinoa responded noncommittally. She couldn't disagree more, but had no wish to argue with Ellone at this moment. _I don't want to lose my memories of Squall. Not a single one_ , she thought.

Ellone remained silent, and after a while Rinoa realized that she had fallen asleep. She tugged the quilt gently out from under Ellone and laid it over the older girl, then returned to her own bed and turned out the lamp. But it was a long time before she slept; her mind was too full of images of the Squall she loved and the familiar-yet-unfamiliar, smiling young man in the Oakwright family album.

* * *

Breakfast at the Oakwrights' house was a cheerful affair. Spring sunlight streamed in through the windows, and Mr. Oakwright bid the girls a cheerful greeting before heading off on an early-morning walk. Mrs. Oakwright was busy in the kitchen while Rinoa sipped on a coffee and watched Robbie inhale a bowl of oatmeal porridge, his tongue apparently immune to scalding milk.

She was suddenly assailed by a mouth-watering aroma drifting into the room. Rinoa heard footsteps on the stairs, and turned her head to see a brown-haired, heavily freckled young man around her own age, a paper bag tucked under his arm, bound up the stairs to the living area two steps at a time. "Guess what Mom, it's cinnamon rolls today," he called, then broke into a wide smile as his eyes fell on Ellone. "Ellie!", he said cheerfully, and glanced at Rinoa. "Who's your friend?" he asked.

Ellone's mouth was formed into a small 'o' shape, but she visibly pulled herself together.

"This is Rinoa, my friend from Deling. Rinoa, this is my brother, Alexander," she replied, still looking a little shellshocked.

"Alex, please," he said pleasantly. He was undeniably the young man from the photo album. Shorter and stockier than Squall, the similarity to Ellone in his facial features was even more striking in real life. He turned back to his sister. "Why didn't you say you were coming, Ellie?" he chided amiably. "I could have dropped by last night with Heidi. She'd love to see you."

Rinoa watched as Ellone fought to appear casual. "Yeah, sorry. We just felt like a night away from the city. It's just a flying visit, I guess."

"Well, next time, huh? Let me go and give these to Mom." He leaned over and gave his sister a quick kiss on the cheek, and Rinoa saw Ellone's ears slowly turn pink.

After a few more pleasantries Alex left to return to the bakery, and Rinoa and Ellone tucked into the cinnamon rolls with relish. They tasted every bit as good as they smelled, and Rinoa was delighted to see Mrs. Oakwright put the remainder in a paper bag for the two girls to eat on the bus.

Robbie gave a shy goodbye before setting off for school, and Rinoa and Ellone started to make preparations for their journey home.

When it was time to depart, Mrs. Oakwright drew Ellone into an enveloping hug. "It was so good to see you, sweetie," she said softly, and Rinoa saw that Ellone had closed her eyes, as if soaking up the woman's embrace. Mrs. Oakwright released her and turned to Rinoa.

"And you're welcome to come and see us again any time, d'you hear that, Rinoa?" she said, and held out her arms. "Come here."

Rinoa hesitantly stepped forward, and let the comforting warmth of the hug wash over her. She couldn't recall when she had last been embraced in such a maternal way. Mrs. Diviney had been kind enough, but she had never really stepped out of the role of employee, and Rinoa had never felt true affection from her. She'd been friendly with a few older women in Timber, and later developed cordial relationships with Edea, Dr. Kadowaki, and even Ma Dincht, but none of those women had held her as if she were a child. She felt her eyes mist over as she squeezed Mrs. Oakwright's ample midsection in return.

Mrs. Oakwright pulled back, and looked up at Rinoa with a twinkle in her eye. "I'll put in a good word for you with that other son of mine, dear," she chuckled, to which Rinoa protested, "Oh please don't do that, he'll think I'm a creepy stalker!"

_But if I've got the mother on my side, that's as good a start as any,_ she thought to herself with a stir of renewed excitement at the incredible idea that Squall was somehow alive and well, and living in her own home city.

* * *

Ellone was extremely quiet on the bus back to Deling City. She stared out of the window in deep thought and only managed to eat one of the cinnamon rolls, abandoning the rest to Rinoa.

"Are you okay?" Rinoa ventured to ask after a while.

Ellone's eyes were blank. "I should be happy. I've got a family. But I just feel empty. I don't know any of them."

Rinoa had no idea what to say to that, and allowed Ellone her solitude for the rest of the journey. They parted at the central bus terminal, Ellone distractedly mumbling goodbye, and Rinoa boarded her own bus back to the Caraway Mansion. Now that she was in Deling once more, she was flooded with a sense of exhilaration in the knowledge that Squall was _here_ , somewhere, in the very same city. _I could walk past him in the street,_ she thought wonderingly.

General Caraway was in his study when she returned to the house. He put down his newspaper and looked up at her with interest.

"And how was your excursion to Winhill?"

"Great," Rinoa replied. "My friend's family were very hospitable. They run the pub there, actually. It's a beautiful little town. I'm glad I went."

Caraway nodded approvingly. "A change in surroundings is always refreshing. I'm long overdue one myself." He hesitated, then said, "Maybe we could take a trip to the countryside together, like we did when your mother was alive."

Rinoa gaped at her father. "What, just you and me?" Her voice was colored with incredulity, and she realized, too late, how rude she sounded.

Caraway's eyes fell to his desk, and Rinoa wished she could take back her words.

"Is that perhaps too much to hope for?" He sighed, then regarded her with a level gaze. "Rinoa, have I done something to upset you? I had thought we'd found our way to a better footing since you came back from Timber, but you've been looking at me these past few days as if I'm a stranger."

"No… it's nothing, really," Rinoa assured him, and hurriedly bid him goodnight. She could see that he was hurt by her aloofness and knew that their relationship deserved more of her attention; but for now her mind was buzzing at the revelation he'd just given her.

_Timber?_ So she _had_ been there. She needed to find out what had happened, and why she had left.


	4. Chapter IV

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter IV**

Their return from Winhill had been a Thursday evening; Rinoa did not hear from Ellone until the following Monday. She knew that the older girl needed time to process the overwhelming shock of meeting her parents and brothers, but Rinoa was not sure quite how much distance she should maintain towards her. She did not want to push too hard for Ellone to open up. Sure, they had gotten along well enough until Rinoa's control on her magic started to disintegrate, but they were hardly best friends, and after all that had happened, Rinoa was under no impression that she was Ellone's first choice of person to be stranded in a parallel universe with.

Mrs. Diviney came to find her in Caraway's study when the phone call came, late on Monday morning, and Rinoa took it gratefully.

"I called him," Ellone told her breathlessly.

Rinoa didn't need to ask who. "How did he sound?"

"He sounded like Squall, but more laid back and a little bit friendlier, I suppose. But it was him. His voice. He's alive, Rin."

Rinoa closed her eyes and clutched the phone. _Thank you_ , she told the universe silently. _Squall's alive. That's more than enough_.

Ellone's voice crackled down the phone again. "I asked him to meet us at Carbuncle's Teahouse in the south sector this afternoon," she said. "He finishes work at five thirty, so I said six. Can you make it?"

Rinoa inhaled sharply. "Yes." _Yes yes yes._ "Oh Elle, I can't believe we're actually going to see him."

"Me neither. It's going to be even stranger than Winhill was."

* * *

"Feeling ready?" Ellone had one hand on the heavy oak door of Carbuncle's, which was a rustic, twee little establishment in walking distance of her apartment.

Rinoa's legs had suddenly turned to the consistency of jelly. "No. Yes. _Shit_. Open the door, Elle. You might have to drag me inside. I don't think I can walk."

Ellone nodded, and swung the door open. Rinoa followed her into the teahouse, absently noting how cozy it was inside, with large fluffy cushions piled on beaten old leather sofas.

And there he was, sitting on a sofa by a table in the corner closest to the door, with a porcelain teacup held between both hands. _Squall._ Alive. Her mind swam.

"Ellie!" he called out suddenly. His eyes swept right over Rinoa and settled on his sister, and he gave a bright smile just for Ellone. _Don't be jealous, you idiot,_ thought Rinoa, but she was. The man she loved was right here in front of her eyes and he had no idea who she was.

She studied him silently. He still bore the same sharply handsome features she knew better than her own face. His messy chestnut hair was more or less the same length as before, but his forehead was clear; she reminded herself with a start that this Squall had never been scarred by Seifer's blade. Where her Squall had been covered with dense muscle from his years of constant battle training, this one's physique was was thinner, leaner, but still lithe and by no means any less attractive - to her, at least. He was a little less clean-shaven than he had been as a SeeD, with a faint dusting of stubble running along his jaw. Her eyes drifted down to his clothes. He was wearing an olive-green t-shirt and dark blue jeans, and it suited him. Rinoa thought of her Squall, whose wardrobe consisted of black, more black, white and gray. Had the presence of a loving family helped him to embrace a wider color palette, she wondered? She could see a glint of a silver chain at his neck, tucked into his shirt. _Could it be the Griever pendant?_ she thought, suddenly desperate to know. If it was… did it mean he was the same person?

But he _was_ different, she admitted to herself. Not only in his build, but his posture and whole demeanor seemed so much more relaxed than she'd ever known him to be.

Ellone grabbed Rinoa's hand and walked over to the table. "Hey. This is my friend," she started, and Rinoa's heart thundered against her chest as Squall turned his eyes to her. How she had longed to see his face again, and yet it was suddenly too much to take; to see him look at her now with no flicker of recognition and only a polite social smile, not the genuine warmth he had shown his sister. Squall's smile faded and he looked at her with a worried crease on his brow, and then glanced to Ellone with a hint of alarm in his blue eyes. Rinoa wondered why, and only realized the tears were streaming down her face when she felt wet drops plopping off her chin.

Embarrassment flared up inside her. "Sorry. Sorry. _Argh._ Sorry," she babbled as she smeared the tears away with the backs of her hands. "Would you mind please pretending that never happened?" she said as cheerfully as she could manage, avoiding his eyes as she sat down on the opposite sofa, next to Ellone.

"Uh…" said Squall uncertainly, his eyes flicking between the two girls.

_Get a grip, woman,_ Rinoa told herself sternly, as she took a breath and looked up at him with a too-bright smile and held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Rinoa."

Squall reached out for her hand somewhat nervously, then seemed to relax as she valiantly held his gaze, without letting her fixed smile waver. Then a gleam of understanding seemed to light his face, and he said conversationally, "Oh, you're the one who stayed with Mom and Dad the other day. Our mom was really taken with you. She wouldn't stop going on about you on the phone."

Rinoa found herself unable to reply, thunderstruck by the friendliness of his tone and the openness of his expression. He was more different than she could have imagined, after all. Squall's uncertainty seemed to be growing back the longer she hesitated, and Rinoa was grateful when Ellone started to speak instead.

"Yeah, I thought since she met everyone else in the family, I ought to bring her to meet you too," she said, with a careless shrug.

"Oh." Squall's eyes darted again between the two girls, and he looked confused. "Uh… Are you two… more than friends?"

Rinoa and Ellone both stared at him in stunned silence, which was shattered by a peal of laughter from Ellone. Rinoa smiled. She hadn't heard Elle's laugh for many months, perhaps years; it reminded her of happier times in Esthar, long ago, with Laguna playing the fool, Ellone giggling like a girl and Squall standing in between them with what Rinoa called his 'whatever' face threatening to crack.

The Squall sitting in front of her now looked flustered, his face starting to turn red, which only made Ellone laugh harder, and Rinoa found herself laughing too at the absurdity of her beloved Knight wondering if she was in a relationship with his big Sis.

"Nope, sorry to disappoint you there, little brother. Just two heterosexual girls who happened to form a close bond through various shared experiences," said Ellone sweetly, and reached out to ruffle his hair as she had often done in Rinoa's own past.

He batted her hand away, as he always had. "Sorry, it was just… the way you wanted to introduce her to our family, and…" He exhaled and gave an embarrassed smile. "So, not a couple then?"

"Definitely not," giggled Rinoa, and Squall met her eyes for a fraction of a second longer than he had before. Would he be attracted to her in this reality, she wondered? Their first meeting in her own memories had been the stuff of fairy tales - eyes locking across a crowded ballroom after both noticing the same shooting star - whereas this, well, was anything but. Had _her_ Squall's attraction to her been shaped by the way they met? Would a cringeworthy conversation in a teahouse prevent it from ever developing in the first place? She tried to shake her troubling thoughts away and decided to focus on how thankful she was for the way his comical misunderstanding had broken the tension.

"So how did you two meet?" Squall said, and Rinoa realized with a jolt of panic that he was addressing her. _How the hell do I answer that? On a space station, but I was comatose and possessed by a Sorceress from the future_ -

"Rinoa comes into my restaurant sometimes," said Ellone calmly, swooping to her rescue. "We've known each other for a while. We just clicked, I guess," she shrugged.

Rinoa stood up. "I'll go and order some tea. What would you like, Elle?"

"Hmm… Jasmine, I think. Thanks, Rin."

Rinoa went off to order two cups of tea, vowing to be considerably less flustered when she came back.

Ellone watched Rinoa head off to the counter, and then glanced back at her brother. Squall was sipping his tea and looking at Ellone closely. She wondered what to say to him. He was Squall, and yet he wasn't.

"Ellie?"

She frowned. 'Ellie' grated on her when it came from Squall. She hadn't minded it so much from the Oakwrights, who she didn't really know, but coming from her little brother it made her feel uncomfortably like a different person. _Which I am_ , she thought with a pang of sadness.

"Is your friend okay?" Squall asked, looking concerned. "I mean, she recovered quickly, but when I first spoke to her, she looked at me like I'd shot her through the heart."

Ellone winced at the unwitting irony in his words. "Don't worry about it. It's not anything you did. She's just… been through some stuff lately." Squall seemed even more unsure at this, and Ellone decided to cut straight to the point.

"Listen Squall, are you seeing anyone at the moment?"

Squall looked at her warily. "Nope. Thought you knew that."

"Okay, so… How would you feel about taking Rinoa out for dinner tonight?"

He leaned back. "Me? Isn't she _your_ friend?"

"She… look, I can't really explain it, but she… she needs you," she finished lamely, wondering what Rinoa's reaction to this poorly-executed plan would be. Squall crossed his arms and tilted his head to look at her searchingly, and it was such a very Squall-like mannerism that Ellone stifled a small smile of joy at the glimpse of the brother she knew and loved.

"Ellie," he said tersely. "Do you mean that she got dumped, she's heartbroken and she needs a nice honest guy to show her that not _all_ men are utter bastards? And you just thought 'Hey, my brother could do that'? Because-"

"No, its not like that at all," said Ellone hurriedly. "I can't explain, I just need you to trust me."

Squall shook an errant strand of hair out of his eyes, somewhat irritated. "You know that I always trust you, but this is pretty weird. I mean, she's cute, but…" he trailed off, looking at Rinoa standing in the line at the counter. "But you can't just decide who I take out on dates for me," he said firmly, returning his eyes to his sister.

Ellone held up her hands. "Okay, okay, don't think of it as a date. Please. Just have a meal together somewhere, talk to her and… and be _you_."

"Who else would I be?" asked Squall, mystified.

Ellone pondered how to respond to this when Rinoa approached the table shyly, carrying a wooden tray loaded with two cups of fragrant jasmine tea. She smiled encouragingly, and Rinoa sat down next to her, apparently unable to look at Squall as she reached for her own cup.

"So how's your work been going?" Ellone asked.

Squall drained the last of his tea from the cup. "Fine. A little busy, I guess. There's a new apartment block going up in the old merchant's quarter, and my firm got a contract to put the kitchens in. So the boss is sending me back and forth between there and the north side of Deling at the moment."

"You're, um, a carpenter, right?" Rinoa somehow managed.

"Yeah."

Rinoa was entirely used to one-word answers and conversational dead-ends with Squall, but this was a Squall that didn't know that, and the silence they lapsed into threatened to become awkward.

She looked over at Ellone, who seemed to be drinking her tea indecently fast.

"Well, my dinner shift at the restaurant's starting soon, so… You guys have a nice evening, okay?" She set her cup down with a bright smile.

Rinoa gawked at her with incomprehension and a sudden rising wave of panic. "You're leaving?"

"Yeah, I better not be late. Thanks for the tea, Rin." Ellone patted her on the knee, shot a single, vaguely apologetic look at Squall, and swiftly left the teahouse.

Rinoa caught Squall's gaze, then instantly looked away. An intrusive image of his dead body, with those blank unfocused eyes - she'd kept trying to close them with her hand, but they wouldn't stay shut - was pressing itself against her mind, and she felt as though he'd somehow see it too if she looked straight at him.

But the silence expanded further, and she knew it was down to her to break it.

"Sorry about before."

He shook his head. "It's okay."

"Um," said Rinoa, inadequately, and discovered that she had absolutely no idea what to say.

Squall set his empty teacup down abruptly, and fixed her with a serious expression.

"Look, you probably ought to know that my sister asked me to take you out on a date tonight," he finally said.

"Oh," said Rinoa weakly, her heart sinking at the stony set of Squall's jaw. "Did she?"

He shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable. "I'm telling you because I don't like deceiving people, and you might feel hurt if you found out about it afterwards."

"Well, we don't have to. Really. I'm sorry she asked." Rinoa fiddled with her purse uneasily, wondering if she should just leave right now.

"No!" Squall growled in frustration and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going about this the wrong way." He sighed and his face relaxed suddenly. "Let's start this conversation again. Rinoa, how about we go somewhere for dinner after this?"

She blinked. "Honestly, you don't have to…" she started, but Squall cut her off.

"Dammit, I _want_ to now," he said stubbornly, with his face set in a way that Rinoa knew well, and she rejoiced inwardly at the familiarity. "I haven't taken a girl out in way too long, so why the hell not. I want to do it _my_ way though, which means telling you about Ellie's weird ideas beforehand, just so you know that I'm not asking you because my sister made me." He looked at her nervously for a moment. "I mean, if you want to… well, I'd like to," he finished. He broke away from her gaze, and for a second looked so very much like his awkward seventeen-year-old self that her heart fluttered with love.

Rinoa broke into a delighted smile, which seemed to have some effect on him, as he looked slightly stunned at her response. "I'd like that too, then. Thank you," she said simply.

Squall gave her a shy smile in return. "Good. Let's go when you finish your tea. Is there anywhere you'd like to go? Except we're _not_ going to the place where Ellie works," he warned sternly.

Rinoa giggled. "Definitely not there," she agreed, then an idea formed in her mind. "How about… do you like Balamb fish?"

She waited nervously for his reply. Balamb fish had always been Squall's favorite meal. Would this Squall, who had not grown up in Balamb, feel the same way?

"Never tried it," he answered blithely, and Rinoa felt a sinking disappointment. _You can't expect him to be the same person,_ she told herself. _The Squall you knew is gone._

"Which means it's a good idea," he continued, with a sudden smile. "Balamb fish it is, then. There's a Balamb-style diner a couple of blocks from here, I think. I've never been in there, but it seems pretty popular."

Rinoa met his smile with a sunny one of her own, her unease starting to trickle away.

* * *

Rinoa turned her head to look up at the tall apartment blocks that lined the street as they walked the short distance between Carbuncle's and The Balamb Grill. "I don't know this part of the city very well," she admitted. Having lived at the Caraway Mansion and attended prestigious schools located outside of the city, she had rarely had reason to venture into the largely blue-collar south district.

"How long have you lived in Deling?" Squall asked.

"I was born here, but my mom died when I was young and after that I spent a lot of time in boarding schools. I guess I've never really explored the city much. How about you?"

"Two years. I finished training as a carpenter when I was eighteen, and I wanted to try living somewhere else other than Winhill. Ellie was here, so…"

Rinoa marveled at how much more articulate he now was, with longer sentences, and how readier he was to smile. All these things combined made him resemble Laguna more closely than he ever had before, but she concluded that this Squall was still a good deal more introspective and reserved than his father. Perhaps that side of him came from Raine, she thought.

_I have to ask, even if it sounds creepy. "_ Your pendant, um… what is it?"

"This?" He fished it out of its hiding place under his shirt, and Rinoa wanted to cry out with joy at the familiar sight of Griever. "It's a lion. I just like it, really. I have a ring too, but I can't wear it at work. Y'know, in case it gets caught on a screw and rips my finger off or something."

She smiled and nodded, while her heart thundered away triumphantly. _He has Griever. He's Squall._

Rinoa's high school Philosophy class had once held a debate on the subject of 'Nature versus Nurture'. She couldn't recall which side she had been advocating for, but she remembered how one of her classmates had read out a newspaper cutting about a pair of identical twins who had been adopted into two different families on opposite sides of the Galbadian continent. When they were reunited as adults, they found that they had the same mannerisms, wore similar clothes, and had even married women with the same first name. _Didn't this show_ , the girl had argued, _that at least part of our personalities and preferences are hard-wired into us at birth?_ Rinoa tried to apply her words to this different Squall, with his different life, choosing the same jewelry. Would he choose the same girlfriend too?

"This is the place I meant," he said, stopping at the door to a lively-looking tavern with the unmistakeable smells of grilled seafood drifting out of the open door.

Rinoa followed Squall inside and joined him at the table he had chosen for them, once more in the corner. She briefly explained the various menu items to him, taking care to recommend the side dishes that she knew were his favorites. After they had ordered, she sipped her water, wondering how to fill the silence.

"What made you decide to be a carpenter?" she asked.

Squall shrugged. "I was good at it. And it was either that or work at the family pub, really." He scratched the back of his neck self-consciously. "I'm not the type for a customer-facing job. My parents and Ellie are great at it, but I'm better off making things than talking to people. In a place like Winhill, there weren't many other options."

"You never thought of signing up?"

Squall stared at her with his mouth half-open. "What, you mean to the military? No. Not at all." He shook his head. "That's not me," he added quietly.

Rinoa wondered, a little nervously, if she had offended him. "I just meant," she clarified gently, "that in a lot of small towns that ends up being the default option for young men."

He seemed to relax slightly. "Oh, I see. Well, that's not the case in Winhill. People back home are pretty distrustful of the G-Army. It goes back to the last war, I think."

Rinoa nodded. Some things were the same as ever. She watched Squall carefully as he took a drink of water and cast his eyes around the diner. 'That's not me', he'd said. It unsettled her and warmed her at the same time. _You never had an innate thirst for combat, did you? It was all forced on you. Maybe this is the real you. What you were all along._

"How about you?" he asked suddenly. "Ellie didn't mention what you do for a living."

"Oh." Rinoa couldn't think how to answer. The fact that in this new life she was apparently swanning around on her father's money, with no occupation to speak of, was an embarrassment. "I'm kind of in between jobs at the moment," she hedged. "I guess I'm trying to work out what I want to do with my life. What I might be good at." She smiled ruefully. "No luck so far."

Squall looked at her thoughtfully. "So what did you do before?"

She briefly considered making up some plausible story, then realized with complete certainty that she didn't want to lie to Squall, even if she couldn't tell him the whole truth. "I was a member of a resistance faction in Timber," she admitted quietly, and saw his eyebrows rise in surprise. "For a couple of years. And now Timber's independent, and I have no idea what to do with myself. That was the only goal I ever had, really. So I suppose I have to find a new one."

Squall was silent for a while, and Rinoa peeked up through her lashes to gauge his reaction. "Huh. I can see why it would be hard to take up a normal job after something like that," he said seriously.

She smiled at him. _You're still as thoughtful as ever_ , she silently told him. She'd always loved the way he listened carefully and thought about what people said, even if his reactions didn't always seem to show it. So many people had misunderstood that aspect of Squall, assuming him to be indifferent and uncaring. But she knew he was always, always thinking. That was who he was. And the removal of Hyne from the world hadn't changed that at all.

The waiter brought their Balamb fish to the table, and Squall's eyes widened slightly.

"The portions here are twice the size they would be in Balamb," Rinoa commented with glee. "I guess everything's bigger in Deling, huh?"

Squall picked up his fork to dig in, and Rinoa felt a chill of anxiety as she suddenly realized how much hope she was pinning on his reaction. _If he loves it, then he's still the same person._ She knew that wasn't rational in the least, but she held her breath all the same.

Squall chewed slowly, then laid his fork on the plate and looked her in the eye solemnly.

"How have I never tried this before?" he said, quietly. "It's really good."

Rinoa exhaled, and felt a moistness gather in her eyes with alarming speed as she smiled soppily at the man she loved.

Squall was cutting a piece of fish when he noticed her surreptitiously trying to wipe her eyes. He swallowed awkwardly. "Rinoa, you're um, you're crying again."

She cringed. "Is it worth me asking you to pretend you didn't see it this time, too?"

He put down his knife and fork and leveled her with a concerned gaze. "Are you okay?"

Rinoa rubbed the last of the tears away and gave an unconvincing laugh. "I really am. Really."

A flash of insight crossed Squall's face, and although their Sorceress-Knight bond was most definitely gone, Rinoa felt sure she could sense his thoughts: _Maybe it's her time of the month._ She choked down a sudden urge to laugh wildly, and grinned at him with as much reassurance as she could manage, then tucked into her own serving of Balamb fish.

* * *

They emerged onto the street as the sun was halfway through setting, deep burnished shards of gold hitting the windows of the office block directly opposite the diner. Rinoa squinted at the glare and turned to face Squall.

"That was great," she beamed.

"Yeah. It was." Squall tilted his head slightly, and in the grip of a sudden fear that he was about to bid her a good evening and walk out of her life forever, Rinoa jumped in to speak first.

"Can we walk through the south district for a while? I'd like to see it a little more. Is there a park near here?"

The slight movement of Squall's eyebrows betrayed his mild surprise at her request, but he nodded his head. "Yeah, there is, about five minutes away."

He set off in the opposite direction to the road they had taken from the teahouse, and Rinoa attempted to lengthen her stride to catch him up. He looked back at her questioningly.

"My legs are half the length of yours, Squall," she pointed out, amused. He'd never been good at adjusting to her pace.

"Oh. Sorry." He slowed down to a halt with a sheepish expression on his face that Rinoa thought was one hundred percent Laguna.

As they stood alongside each other, Rinoa accidentally-on-purpose brushed her fingers against his. _I'm being too obvious,_ she thought, but her craving for his touch had finally overpowered her. Her breath stopped as Squall hesitantly caught her fingers and entwined them with his, and as they walked along, holding hands, she found that she still couldn't breathe. Squall glanced over to her, shyly.

"Is this okay?" he asked, his voice soft.

"Yes. It is," she replied, and started to feel a sense of calm growing within her at last. Squall was here, his fingers were warm, and his heart was beating in his chest. He was alive.

Without thinking, she squeezed his hand gently, and joy burst through her as he actually squeezed it back. She thought about how incomprehensibly _simple_ this felt in comparison to the Squall she had first known, how closely guarded he had been. Did the warmth he had received from Mrs. Oakwright, the security of a close-knit family, make it easy and natural for this version of Squall to take a girl's hand? She wondered with a pang of jealousy if he had loved other girls, had been able to form serious relationships without a fear of abandonment hanging over him.

"Your family…" she started. "They were really kind to me. Your mom's wonderful."

"Thanks. Mom likes fussing over people." He gave a half-smirk. "She's a world expert at it by now."

"It was… she made me feel like a kid, but in a really good way." Rinoa tried to work out what she was trying to say. "I mean, I've never… I told you I lost my mom, right? So…" She frowned. _I sound like I'm trying to appropriate his mom._

"Yeah. I'm sorry if you never had that," Squall replied with an unexpected gentleness, and her heart swelled at how observant he was of her feelings.

"I guess Ellie already told you I'm adopted?"

"She did, yes."

"Mm. I never really felt like it, though." His gaze was directed at a line of trees in a small park that now lay in front of them.

Squall tugged slightly on her hand. "I want to show you something."

He led her along the line of trees, looking up at the branches.

"These are all cherry trees. This place will be packed with people in a week or so, when the blossoms come out." He stopped walking, and looked up at the tree on the end of the row with a small smile of satisfaction. "This one."

Rinoa turned her head upwards too, and in the dimming light could make out a few pink buds and pale petals unfurling from its branches.

"This one always blooms first," he told her, then caught her eye and looked away self-consciously. "I know that because when I came to Deling two years ago, it was this exact time of year. My first ever job here was a renovation in that big apartment building opposite the park. I used to come here alone to eat my lunch, and I always sat under this tree once I figured out it was one step ahead of the others." He half-smiled at the memory. "Actually, Ellie made me a different sandwich every day. I was staying with her until I earned enough to rent my own place." He turned to Rinoa and fixed her with a serious look. "I should point out that I make my own sandwiches now."

Rinoa giggled. "I see."

He nodded in mock solemnity.

"Thanks for showing me. It's nice to learn about who you are, Squall Leonhart," she said, smiling brightly up at him.

Squall returned the smile hesitantly, then looked thoughtful. "So Ellie told you my middle name, then."

Rinoa chided herself. Squall Oakwright would take a long time to get used to. "Yeah… sorry. It's just a really nice name. It was your mother's surname, right?"

Squall frowned. "My birth mother, yeah. I never knew her though."

Rinoa nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry she died before you had a chance to."

Squall was silent for a moment, and Rinoa didn't try to prod him for more. They started to leave the park, hands still linked. To her surprise, he soon started speaking again. "Mom was good friends with her, and told me stories about her now and then when I was little. We used to visit her grave occasionally. I haven't thought about her for years, though, really. I guess I should feel bad about that, but…" He trailed off, and Rinoa marveled again at how much easier it was for this Squall to open up to her. "Mom and Dad did such an amazing job of welcoming me into the Oakwright family that it never occurred to me to miss what I'd never known. And Ellie, too. You know, she was almost five when they took me in. It must have been a pretty big upheaval for her. And then Alex was born a few months later. Mom was rushing around with two newborns on her hands, and Ellie took on the role of looking after me when Mom couldn't." He grimaced slightly. "She still likes to remind me that she changed most of my diapers."

Rinoa felt a pang of sadness for _her_ Squall, who had his beloved sister torn away from him, twinned with a rush of affection for the young man in front of her, who so evidently had loved Ellone his whole life. "It sounds like you two are really close," she said.

"Yeah. Alex and I are the same age, and we were so competitive, we basically spent eighteen years bickering and occasionally knocking the crap out of each other. And while Robbie's a sweet kid, there's such a big age gap that I feel more like an uncle to him sometimes. I always felt closest to Ellie." He looked thoughtful. "I probably wouldn't even have moved to Deling if she hadn't already been living here. Ellie's great." Squall frowned again. "Even though she was _really_ weird tonight." He turned to look at Rinoa, his brow crinkled with worry. "Actually, she sounded weird on the phone, too. I can't put my finger on it, but something's off. Do you know if she's okay?"

Rinoa pondered what to say to that, seeing the anxiety in Squall's eyes. "She's okay. Just… some things have been happening." Squall opened his mouth to speak, then she quickly reassured him, "No-one's hurt her or anything like that. She's just been going through some…stuff."

Squall closed his mouth and gazed at her for a second. "Hmm. That's what she said about you." He turned his head to look ahead again and resumed walking. Rinoa wasn't sure how to respond, so walked alongside him in silence. After a while, Squall sighed and said "Ah, well. Ellie's usually pretty open with me. I guess she'll tell me when she's ready."

_I wish we could tell you,_ Rinoa thought. _But how could it ever make any sense?_

They walked down a street she didn't know for a while longer, and Rinoa wondered if Squall was taking her to the bus stop. She glanced over at him, seeing him lost in thought, and her stomach fluttered when he suddenly met her eyes with an uncertain, very Squall-like look.

"Rinoa…" he started. "My apartment's on the next block, so…"

"Oh", she said, swallowing down a twinge of despair that their evening was drawing to a close, that she would soon have to let go of his hand.

"I… if you want to, you could come up for coffee…" he said, not meeting her eyes. The last of the daylight had faded now, but Rinoa thought his face had flushed slightly. She opened her mouth vacantly and realized nothing was coming out.

"Honestly just coffee, though, I don't mean… I'm not trying to…" he said awkwardly, and she found her voice. "I'd like that," she said, smiling at him, and he met her eyes and smiled back shyly. Rinoa's stomach was now doing somersaults. Squall, the man she'd loved for three years and now had no idea who she was, actually seemed to be _hitting_ on her in his own reticent way. She wasn't quite sure it was really happening.

"Okay," he said, and they walked further in silence, still hand-in-hand, before he led her up some concrete steps to the upper floor of a two-story apartment building, and unlocked the door.

Before going in, he turned to her suddenly, with the stubborn look back in his eyes. "Just so you know, my sister _didn't_ ask me to do this." Before Rinoa could reply, he headed inside, and she followed.


	5. Chapter V

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter V**

Squall headed into his modest kitchen while Rinoa slyly surveyed the decor and contents of his one-bedroom apartment. It was an old building, and the fixtures were somewhat shabby, but Squall evidently kept it clean and tidy. It certainly had a warmth and lived-in feeling that his dorm room at Garden had lacked entirely.

What intrigued her most was the bookshelf lined with paperback novels - _he reads fiction? -_ and an acoustic guitar leaning against the sofa. The idea of Squall having any kind of musical aptitude or interest was utterly alien to her. _But if he'd had the opportunity… who knows?_

"How do you like your coffee?" he called, and Rinoa walked slowly towards the kitchen. She stood under the door frame and stared at Squall, who was standing at the counter with two mugs and an open packet of ground coffee placed in front of him, a teaspoon in his hand.

Her silence prompted him to speak again. "Uh - Rinoa?"

"I… I don't want you to make coffee."

Squall's look of confusion lasted for the two or three seconds that passed until Rinoa's body hurtled against his, her lips crushing his mouth as she wrestled the spoon from his hand and dropped it unceremoniously in the sink. Rinoa grabbed the neck of Squall's t-shirt and started to drag him out of the kitchen towards the living room, all the while not breaking their kiss. She could feel that Squall was hesitant, but not exactly resisting her, and she deepened their kiss more forcefully than she knew she should. But she was almost sure now that Squall was kissing her in return. Her mind screamed victory as she felt one of his hands stroke her hair and another slide to the small of her back. She carried on dragging him backwards, finally pulling him down to the sofa with a last clumsy tug. Squall tore his head away to draw breath.

"That was… intense," he said, looking at her wide-eyed and slightly dazed.

Rinoa, impatient for more, launched herself at him a second time and kissed him for all she was worth. Even as she was dimly aware that he was not responding with quite the same heat, her overwhelming love, lust and desperate need for the man she had lost drove her hands into his hair, down his arms, and onto his chest as she started to tug his shirt over his head. As she broke away to pull the shirt over his neck, she realized that Squall's face was a mix of surprise, bewilderment, and, she cringed as she saw it, unease.

She let the shirt fall to the floor, but withdrew her lips and closed her eyes. "Sorry… I'm going too fast, aren't I?" she whispered.

"Yeah, a little," came his reply, soft but clear. Rinoa looked up at him and saw concern flitting across his eyes. Suddenly feeling unbearably awkward, she let her gaze fall away.

"Can we take a minute?" he asked. She nodded.

Despite her rising sense of mortification and disappointment, Rinoa felt oddly gratified to learn that even this more confident and socially adept Squall was not the type of man to sleep with a girl he had just met. He gently extricated his arms from her waist and shifted back, creating a space between their bodies.

"I mean, it's obvious that I kind of want to, but…" he said, gesturing vaguely down at his lower body, and Rinoa realized with a throb of embarrassment that she must have loosened his belt and undone the buttons to his jeans without even noticing.

"But you don't know me," she said in a small voice, and Squall looked away. "Well… yeah," he replied, not unkindly, but the truth of it stung her. _I'm a stranger to him_.

Then she suddenly had a flash of _her_ Squall, her lost beloved, looking at her with hurt and betrayal in his eyes. _I'm not betraying you if it's you,_ she thought desperately. _Squall… I just miss you so much… and here you are, and you don't know me._

"No, no, Rinoa…" At Squall's horrified expression, Rinoa realized, too late, that tears were streaming down her face again. She groaned, wiping them away furiously. "No way, I can't go crying on you again. None of this is your fault, _at all_. I've really messed everything up." She shuddered with a muffled sob, and wanted to kick herself for being so pathetic.

Squall leaned back from her, and sighed softly. "Listen, I thought this at the beginning, but it seems like you're on the rebound," he said, and she watched a dawning realization pass across his face as his eyes narrowed, "probably from a guy who likes Balamb fish". Rinoa hiccuped as her sobs threatened to turn into wildly inappropriate laughter, then she surrendered and found herself half-wailing, half-hysterical with laughter.

" _Of course_ I am _!_ " she burst out in a dangerously shrill voice, and then gave up all attempts to stop her words from tumbling out of their own accord. "I'm on the rebound from _you_ and you don't even _know_ me! I'm a complete stranger to you and you have no idea how much that hurts! And I feel guilty as sin about cheating on you with _yourself_!" She registered the astonished shock on Squall's face, but it was now far too late to halt the torrent of emotion. "And now you're looking at me like a crazy woman who's broken into your apartment to be crazy, and I can't even blame you for that because everything I'm saying _is_ absolutely batshit crazy! I can't ever explain it to you and you'd never believe me even if you could see it… if you could see it…" she started to slow down, her chest heaving, while her mind caught up.

_If he could_ see _it… Ellone._

Squall had by now shifted to the edge of the sofa, with the wary expression of a man trying to back away from a wild animal. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. "I'm sorry," said Rinoa quietly, aware of how utterly inadequate an apology would be at this point. "I don't think I can redeem myself after that."

Squall's mouth opened and closed again and he took a deep breath. "It's pretty obvious that you're not okay." He paused. "What do you want to do?" He looked at her cautiously, waiting for her answer.

Rinoa closed her eyes and tried her hardest to present an impression of calm after the storm. "I want to explain what just happened, but… I need Ellone to help me," she said. Squall looked at her, still slightly dumbfounded. "Would it be all right if you called her and asked her to come over?" she asked, wondering if her nascent idea would only make things worse.

"Well, I guess her shift'll have finished by now," he said, and Rinoa realized with a twinge of guilt that he had taken Ellone's excuse for leaving the teahouse at face value. The flush returned to his cheeks as Squall frowned awkwardly and added "But if I call her… she'll know we… uh…"

Rinoa let out a bitter laugh. "Oh don't worry, she's known about us for years," she said dismissively, with a wave of her hand. Squall leaned away from her again, as she belatedly processed what she had said.

"Yeah, right back to freaking me out again," he muttered. Then he exhaled heavily. "You know what, I _will_ call her, if only because I think you probably really need a friend right now." He stood up from the sofa, and threw his t-shirt back over his head, shrugging it down over his chest, and buttoned the top of his jeans. Despite everything, Rinoa sighed inwardly at the loss of the sight of his lean, bare torso with the Griever pendant dangling over his collarbone.

"I also think we could definitely both use that coffee now." He paced into the kitchen, as Rinoa drew her knees up into her chest and sunk her head into them heavily. _Way to mess it all up, Heartilly._

After a few moments, Squall's voice came softly from the kitchen. "Ellie? Can you drop by my place? It's Rinoa, she… She got upset, and… No. Yeah." His voice dropped to a lower tone, but she could still hear it. "I'm kind of in over my head here, Ellie." Rinoa winced in mortification. What on earth must he think of her? "Yeah. As soon as you can, please. Since this is _your_ doing in the first place, you weirdo. Yeah. See you."

She heard the hissing of a kettle and the clink of the spoon, and Squall brought in two coffees, then darted back to fetch milk in a miniature jug and a small pot of sugar. _To save himself the awkwardness of asking me how I like it again,_ she cringed.

Squall refrained from rejoining Rinoa on the sofa, taking a seat on the edge of the table as he gestured to her to take her coffee.

"It usually takes her about ten minutes to walk from her place to mine." He did not make eye contact.

Rinoa let the awkward silence grow to fill the room, then decided to ignore it and cast her eye to the books on the shelf along the nearest wall while she sipped her coffee, speculating privately whether or not these were the same beans that Squall had always bought, a north Centran variety. It certainly tasted the same. She fought down an inexplicable urge to ask him to play a her song on the acoustic guitar. Was he any good at it, she wondered?

Squall's sigh of relief when the doorbell rang was audible. He shot up quickly and strode over to the door. Rinoa heard Ellone's voice and Squall's low tones, the words indistinct.

The two siblings entered the living area, Ellone's worried eyes locking straight onto Rinoa.

"There's still some coffee in the pot," Squall announced, disappearing into the kitchen, and Ellone scurried over to the sofa and joined Rinoa.

"What happened?" she whispered.

Rinoa groaned. "I flipped out."

Ellone looked horrified. "You mean, your Sorcery-?"

"No, _no_ , it's definitely gone. No, it was just… everything. He's Squall, and he's not Squall, and he doesn't know me… Ellone, I want to tell him." She gripped Ellone's shoulder unnecessarily tightly. "I want you to show him our memories."

Ellone stared at her for a long moment. "That's probably the worst idea in the entire world, but I… I kind of do, too. I don't know how I'll ever be able to have a relationship with him either, if he doesn't know what… where we came from. I feel so weird around him."

Squall was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, holding a third cup of coffee. "What the hell, Ellie?" he said quietly, and Rinoa wondered how much he'd heard.

She leaned her head towards Ellone. "I think at this point, I've already done so much damage that he'll be freaked out whether we show him or not," she whispered hopelessly.

Ellone looked at Rinoa searchingly again, and a decisive expression settled on her face. "All right." She turned towards Squall. "Come on, little brother. Give me that coffee." Squall, still frowning intensely, walked towards the sofa holding the two girls, and sat down on the small table facing them.

"First of all, I'm going to need you to trust me that this isn't any kind of game, or joke, or…" Ellone trailed off. "There's this thing I can do, and I don't know if you know about it, but the only way is just to show you, I think."

Squall shook his head. "Still not making any sense, Ellie."

Ellone took a deep breath and said, "The world that you know, and all your memories, are less than a week old."

Squall's eyes slid over to Rinoa, and back again. "Are you two on the same drugs?" he demanded loudly.

Rinoa quickly stifled an ill-timed giggle, and Ellone sighed in resignation. "I think I have to go ahead and show you, because talking clearly isn't going to achieve anything. Do you trust me, Squall?"

Squall's bafflement was still laid bare on his face, but at Ellone's question, he nodded impatiently. "I have no idea what's going on, but I already told you, I trust you."

"Okay," Ellone said, and took his hand in hers. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, then gave her own small, resolute nod. "I'm sorry for what you're about to see," she said in a low voice, and Rinoa watched Squall's surprised blue eyes flutter closed as her own eyelids suddenly became inexorably heavy.

Ellone led Squall and Rinoa through a jumble of memories, some her own and some Rinoa's. Ellone showed Squall snippets, without sending him into either of their bodies; it was more like watching a complex sequence of dreams than the powerful physical immersion Rinoa had felt when they traveled to the ancient waterfall. Scenes flickered past her eyes, some featuring Ellone on the White SeeD ship, or Ellone with Laguna and Squall in Esthar, while others were snapshots of Rinoa's own past including flashes of their battles with Edea and Ultimecia, the silent terror of drifting through space, and Squall and Rinoa embracing tightly on the Ragnarok. She saw the gleaming, revolving disks of Balamb Garden, and Squall's gunblade slicing down into a roaring Behemoth. The faces of Zell, Quistis, Irvine and Selphie. Seifer, his gunblade drawn, an arrogant sneer on his face. Rinoa herself, at first smiling, and then…

She watched in horror as her own face twisted into a snarl, and her hands flung shards of ice at - at - _No!_

_Elle, stop! Why? Why are you showing him this?_

She screamed and railed at Ellone; how could she do this? How could she make Squall watch the moment of his death?

_He's not here anymore, Rinoa. It's just you and me._

Rinoa desperately tried in vain to close her eyes as Squall Leonhart, _her_ Squall Leonhart, deflected the rain of spells and advanced towards her, pure determination and love radiating across his beautiful face."Rinoa, I know it's still you in there," he started.

_No!_ she sobbed. _Don't show me killing him, please!_

Squall vanished, and Rinoa was enveloped by a warm, comforting darkness.

Ellone's voice murmured quietly somewhere at her side. _I'm sorry, Rinoa. I was being selfish. I wanted to know how hard you fought for control. I had to see it for myself, so that I could stop blaming you. I won't anymore. I know you couldn't stop it._

Rinoa's sense of dread ebbed away. She could allow Ellone this. It was the least she deserved.

_Where are we?_ she wondered.

_Oh, this is me._ Ellone sounded almost embarrassed.

_What?_

_My mind._

The warmth gradually lifted, and Rinoa was sitting on Squall's sofa once more, her ragged breaths slowing. She reached out and grasped Ellone's hand, and the girl raised her gaze slowly. When she met Rinoa's eyes, the mutual look of gratitude and understanding that passed between them told Rinoa that Ellone would, now and always, be true to her word.

Then Rinoa realized that Squall was staring at them both, his face white as bone. He seemed to struggle to form words. "Ellie, what in the name of holy _fu-_ "

"I guess you've never seen me do that before, then." Ellone said with resignation. "I'm sorry to shock you like that. I've always had this ability… to visit the past through people's memories. I never wanted it. It's blighted my whole life. What you just saw was a mix of mine and Rinoa's memories. I have no memory of growing up in Winhill with you. At all."

She lapsed to a halt and didn't seem to know what to say next. Squall twitched out of his daze. "Start explaining. _Now_ ," he said firmly, with a fierce glare that Rinoa knew well.

Ellone looked at Rinoa hopelessly. "So where should we start?"

Rinoa, avoiding Squall's burning gaze, turned the question over in her mind. "With Sorcery, I guess. That's the thing that's changed, after all."

Ellone took a deep breath and began to talk. She told Squall about the powers of Hyne that had passed through generations of women, cursing the whole of humanity with the chaos they brought. Glancing at Rinoa, she explained that Sorcery had damaged the world so much that they were forced to travel to the past using Ellone's own power to prevent Hyne from ever appearing, and that they had actually succeeded. Then, seeing the look of complete and utter incomprehension on Squall's face, she frowned for a moment, and started again. She talked about the war between Galbadia and Esthar in her childhood, and how Adel's search for a successor had killed her - now their - parents, torn Ellone away from Winhill and how they had both been sent to the Kramers' orphanage. She went on to describe Balamb Garden and SeeD, and how Squall had spent his life training to fight, kill and use magic, eventually becoming the commander of the mercenary organization. Rinoa watched as his eyes never wavered from his sister, his thoughts unreadable, his face still pale. Ellone explained how she'd lived her life on a ship, never knowing a home or a family.

"And when you graduated, Rinoa contracted you to help liberate Timber," she said, and her eyes urged Rinoa to take over the telling. Rinoa swallowed, and thought about what to say. She found that she couldn't even look at Squall, but felt his eyes drilling into her as she spoke.

She briefly explained how she'd been part of the resistance movement in Timber, and then laid out the facts of their fight against Edea, the woman who had been the gentle Matron of Squall's orphanage and was later possessed by the mind of a Sorceress from the far future. How Edea's powers had passed to Rinoa herself, and how Squall had carried her comatose body into Esthar and taken her up into space to find Ellone. She blinked away more tears as she told how he'd saved her, first from asphyxiation in space and then from being frozen forever in the Sorceress Memorial. How he'd pledged to be her Knight, to stay by her side no matter what happened. She tried her best to summarize how they'd faced Ultimecia's Time Compression, and how they'd found each other in the void and returned to the present.

"And by that time, we were in love with each other," she finished quietly, sneaking a look up at Squall to gauge his reaction. He was still silent, but his eyes were fixed disconcertingly on hers, as if trying to discern something, anything, that could let him believe she was lying.

She waited for a long time, wondering if he would find what he was looking for. "So _I'm_ the Balamb fish guy?" he asked, abruptly.

"What?" asked Rinoa, bemused, then thinking back to his earlier words, she smiled sadly. "Yeah. It was, or is _,_ your favorite food in the whole world."

Squall exhaled loudly, leaned forward and ground his knuckles into his forehead, his wrists covering his eyes.

Ellone glanced between the two of them, obviously not understanding the reference, but ventured the question, "Are you saying you… believe us?"

Squall did not answer for what seemed like minutes. Then he straightened back up and sighed. "No. I don't know. I told you that I trust you Ellie, and I'm not going back on that. And Rinoa… well, you seem like you're being genuine. I'm not sure anyone could fake the way you freaked out earlier. I can see that you two _think_ you're telling the truth, but… it's way too much to take in."

He frowned and crossed his arms. "But, the fish thing… It sounds insane, but that's the part that makes all this seem like it could almost be believable. Rinoa took me to eat Balamb fish, and it tasted _amazing_. But it wasn't like trying a new food, it was like… my mind was saying _of course it's good, you already know it is._ It was so… familiar." He looked down, his frown burrowing deep into his unscarred forehead.

"I wonder if on some unconscious level, you did know it. Maybe everyone in the world, apart from me and Rinoa, is having feelings like that," Ellone mused. "There might be all kind of things that feel familiar, feel _right_ , because you already know them."

"I have no idea," muttered Squall, as his gaze drifted up to Rinoa and seemed to settle on her lips. _Did he feel like that when he kissed me?_ she wondered, then scolded herself for wishful thinking.

He looked back at Ellone. "Your… power, what you did, I don't know how to explain it. I felt like I was really there. I don't know how that's even possible. Accepting your explanation might be easier than trying to work out one on my own. But, that doesn't change the fact that it's completely crazy. So how can I…" He looked away, then sighed again. "Well, I suppose I understand why you wanted to tell me. What I _don't_ know is what the hell you want me to do about it."

Rinoa and Ellone exchanged a glance. "You don't have to do anything," said Rinoa softly, then Ellone said, "I guess… we'd just like to get to know you. And while you can't help Rinoa, with me, I… I'd like to know what kind of person I am, and what kind of a life I've had." Her soft brown eyes looked so sad and lost that Rinoa reached to take her hand again, then stopped as she saw that Squall already had placed his own hand on top of his sister's.

"You're a great person, Ellie. Really. You've been the best sister I could have asked for. Even though I came into your family the way I did, you never treated me any different to the others. In fact, I've never told you this, but I always felt like I was your favorite." Ellone looked up at him questioningly. "And I can't tell you how grateful I am for that," he finished, gently. Rinoa's heart ached at the tender smile Squall gave for his sister.

Ellone wiped away a tear from the corner of one eye. "Squall, if it's okay… Could I… Would you share some of your memories with me?" she asked, tentatively. "I promise I won't pry, just a few memories of me and our family. I want to see it for myself." Squall squeezed her hand and nodded slowly. "I don't really get how it works, but okay. Like I said, I trust you," he replied.

Ellone took a deep breath and held his other hand, then she glanced at Rinoa. "Would it be all right if Rin saw them, too?" she asked, and Rinoa felt a surge of affection for the older girl. She then reminded herself not to intrude on this new Squall and the closed book that was his life. "You don't have to," she said hastily. "You don't know me, after all."

Squall held her eyes for a moment, and she wondered what he was thinking. Then he shrugged and said "It's okay. I mean, I saw _your_ memories."

Rinoa nodded mutely. Ellone's eyes flicked between the two of them, and she said "I'll start, then."

Ellone kept her promise of trying not to pry. The scenes from Squall's past were brief and scattered; himself as a child of three or four, sitting on Ellone's lap as she read him a story; then older and running around in the upstairs of Winhill's pub, laughing as Ellone tried to catch him; the whole family snuggled inside a tent in the pub garden, giggling over mugs of hot cocoa and a card game; a teenaged Squall and Alexander sitting next to each other in school, kicking each other's legs under the table. Then an older Squall, flecks of sawdust in his hair, a pencil tucked behind his ear and a beige tool-belt at his waist as he carefully measured the top of a wooden cabinet with a spirit level; followed by an adult Squall and Ellone sprawled on the sofa Rinoa was sitting on right now, Squall strumming lazily on his guitar and Ellone frowning into a book titled 'Trade and Economics in Pre-modern Dollet', with an empty teapot and cups laid on the table in front of them. Rinoa watched as the memory-Ellone stood, put her book down, ruffled Squall's hair affectionately and chuckled "Keep trying, and you might even get a tune out of that thing one day," as she padded off into his kitchen.

Rinoa opened her eyes, feeling tears settling in them once more. She looked across at Ellone, who was openly sobbing. Rinoa's heart ached at the sight of the happy, undamaged Squall and his uneventful life, as it had when they looked at the Oakwrights' family album, but now multiplied much more by how real the memories had felt, how tangible the sense of security and quiet normality.

Squall wore the dazed expression again, but through it he was smiling at his sister. "See?" he said gently. "It's been a good life so far. So don't cry, Ellie".

Ellone snuffled, and Rinoa envied how adorably she did it. Ellone looked over at Rinoa, noticing her tears. "You too, huh?" she smiled.

"Yeah," said Rinoa sadly, and felt another drop trickle down her cheek. Squall looked at her, a question evident in his eyes. "It's just,", she tried to explain, "you had such a lonely childhood, Squall. I mean, the Squall that I… that I was with. You were so lost, and hurt, and so wary of everyone. It took such a long time for you, for him, to let people in." Her heart ached as the image of her Squall, her dear standoffish, reticent, thoughtful Squall, burned bright in her mind. "I… wish I could give this life to him, this is the life he _should_ have had…" She wiped her tears away fiercely. She had almost talked about killing him. She wasn't ready to tell _this_ Squall about that. She glanced up at him, and with a surprised start, saw more compassion in her face than she could have hoped for. _I love you, I love you,_ she told him silently. _I love you and I'm so sorry._

Ellone took her hand. "But Rinoa… D'you see? That's pretty much exactly what you _have_ done."

Rinoa's mouth fell open as she considered Ellone's words. Could she even dare to think of it like that? That she and Ellone had not only brought Squall back to life, but also given him the gift of a happy childhood? No…That was far more credit than she deserved. She'd murdered him with her bare hands.

Ellone looked down, and the pain in her voice was evident."It's the life I should have had too… I wish I'd lived it." Squall reach out to touch her hair and looked at her with helpless eyes. "You and I, Squall… we were separated for so long, and when I finally found you, you didn't know me, and now I've found you again, and you don't know me _again…_ " Ellone burst into tears, and Squall leaned over to the sofa, drawing her to him in a fierce hug.

"I still don't understand any of this, Ellie, but I'll do whatever I can to help you feel like we know each other," he assured her fervently, and Rinoa had to turn away at the intensity of his love for his older sister.

Ellone sniffed and broke away from him, gazing up to smile at her brother. "There's one thing you could… Would you mind? You never called me Ellie before. It doesn't feel right when you do. You called me Sis, or Elle. Do you think.. you could try to do that again?" she asked, almost shyly.

Squall blinked, clearly surprised by this request. "That'll take some getting used to, but I'll give it a go, if that's what you want."

Ellone smiled. "Thanks." She looked thoughtful. "The only other thing I want is to find Uncle Laguna, even if he doesn't know me. He was the most important person in my life, other than you."

Squall stared at her in confusion for a moment, then wariness set into his expression. "That's my… my biological father's name, isn't it?"

Ellone sighed. "Yeah. Guess we hadn't explained that part yet."

An angry look passed over Squall's face. "Why would you want to find the loser who walked out on my mother when she was pregnant?" he demanded.

Ellone shrank back, as if wounded. "No, it wasn't like that at all. He left to rescue me. He didn't even know about you until you were seventeen. He… he was in the memories, Squall. The President of Esthar."

Squall's eyebrows shot up in astonishment. "That dopey-looking guy with the long hair?"

Rinoa fought back a smile as she marveled at how similar this Squall's reaction to Laguna was to his old self. Her Squall had eventually developed a grudging respect for his father, but still muttered about his perceived idiocy from time to time.

"Well, as far as I know he's probably dead," he shrugged.

Ellone looked hurt. "No, I feel like he isn't. I can't explain it," she insisted.

"Who knows. He sure as hell isn't the President of Esthar," Squall snorted.

"I wonder what happened to him after he was recalled to the G-Army. There has to be a way to find out." Ellone's expression was pleading.

Rinoa mulled the concept over. "Do you think he's the same man we knew?" She gave a sudden grin. "Hey, I wonder if the Laguna in this world still had that romantic night with my mom at the Galbadia Hotel."

Squall turned to her with horrified eyes, and Rinoa couldn't help but think it was akin to the haunted look of a man who had belatedly realized he left the gas stove on before locking up the house.

"Um…" she started.

"You mean… Is there any possibility he's your father too?" he asked, stunned.

Rinoa found herself laughing. "No. Of _course_ not! It was a couple of years before you and I were born, and besides, all they did was talk. It was really sweet, though. You told me about it." Enjoying his flustered face, she gave a wicked smile. "Don't worry Squall, you haven't just been making out with your half-sister."

Squall flushed bright red at this, and threw a panicked glance in Ellone's direction. His sister rolled her eyes. "Oh please Squall, I'm not at all shocked by the idea of you two making out. Frankly, it's pretty much all you've been doing for the last three years." Squall's eyebrows shot up even higher, and he would not meet Rinoa's laughing eyes.

"Anyway," continued Ellone, "If it's okay with you, tracking down what happened to Laguna, finding out if he's alive… that's something I really want to do."

Squall regarded her with an unreadable expression for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Fine. I don't know if I want you to involve me in it, though."

Ellone nodded. "I won't. For now, anyway." She searched Squall's eyes and gave him a small smile. "Maybe we had better give you some space to think. I'll take Rinoa home."

"Yeah. I guess," he replied.

Ellone stood. "I'll wash up the coffee cups."

"Thanks," he said absently, as she left the room.

Suddenly aware that she was alone with Squall once more, Rinoa forced herself to say the thing that had been bothering her the most. "I don't want you to feel like any of this means that you have to get to know me," she said quietly. "It's a lot to ask. You… you don't have to see me again. It's up to you."

Squall looked at her seriously for a long moment, and he looked so much like her own Squall that she felt the tears pricking yet again. She blinked them away.

"I don't see how I could ever live up to the guy you think you remember," he said finally. "I'm a carpenter, from the middle of nowhere. Not some sword-wielding hero who jumped into space to catch you."

Rinoa swallowed, not knowing how she could express what she wanted to say to that. _He is you. And it doesn't matter._ "We were in a lot of extreme situations, but I loved you for who you were, not what you did," she said carefully. "I… know this is all so strange that it's hard to see how we could begin to be friends, but… if you'd like to…" she looked at her hands. _I don't want to be friends. I want you. I love you._

Squall studied her, and she wished she could feel the swirl of his thoughts as she had when he was her Knight. "I can't promise you anything," he said honestly. "I don't know what we could be. But… I don't think I can walk away from you and never see you again, after all that's happened tonight." Rinoa felt hope rise up in her, and almost gasped when he tentatively took her hand in his, the first piece of physical contact since he'd broken their kiss. "I might need a bit of time, though," he said softly. "Or a _lot_ of time."

"Of course," she assured him. She savored the blissful sense of hope for a moment longer, and then decided to lighten the tone. "Sorry for being the worst date in the history of the universe."

Squall smiled slightly at that. "I wouldn't say _worst._ Maybe the weirdest." His smile broadened to reach his eyes. "It was actually pretty good until you… uh…"

"Totally ripped apart your perception of reality?" she volunteered, and he actually chuckled quietly.

"Yeah, that. But at least it was memorable." To Rinoa's surprise and delight, he pulled her hand closer to him and leaned towards her with a small smirk. "So in _your_ version of reality, was it always that hot when you and I made out?" he murmured in a low tone, and Rinoa shivered as a surge of desire rose up from her lower body. She could hardly dare to believe he was flirting with her.

"Pretty much," she said, trying to give him her best cheeky grin. Squall returned her expression with one of his devastatingly charming full smiles, and leaned so close that their bodies were almost touching. Encouraged by this, Rinoa couldn't stop herself from adding suggestively, "Believe me, it gets _way_ better."

Squall inhaled sharply at her comment, and Rinoa began to feel her skin heat up with excitement, only for Ellone to shuffle audibly in the doorway and Squall to drop her hand like a hot potato, his face again tinged with a full blush.

Ellone snorted a laugh. "I already told you, I'm very much used to you guys and your sickening chemistry." Squall reddened even more and Rinoa found herself giggling.

"I think we'd better leave him alone with his thoughts," said Ellone, still smirking slightly. "There's still time for you to catch the last bus back to the city center, Rin."

Squall stood. "I'll call you tomorrow, Ellie. And Rinoa, um…" He trailed off, looking lost.

"I'll see you when you're ready," she reassured him. "Take your time. You can contact me through Elle if you like." _Besides, I know where you live now,_ she thought to herself furtively.

Ellone pulled on her arm, and they left the apartment, Squall leaning wordlessly against the door frame as he watched them climb down the steps into the night.


	6. Chapter VI

**Chapter VI**

* * *

Rinoa was finishing her breakfast when Mrs. Diviney laid a white envelope on top of the morning newspaper in front of her. "Today's post, Miss Rinoa." She grabbed it eagerly.

Who could be writing to her? Her excitement faded as she saw the logo of the Bank of Galbadia printed on the envelope. Just a bank statement, she sighed, opening it and skimming the contents absent-mindedly. Then her eyes widened as she noticed that the long string of numbers at the top was not her account number, but her actual current balance.

Rinoa had never had so much gil to her name in her entire life. She scanned down the list of transactions: cash withdrawals here, credit card purchases there. Nothing in huge amounts. Then she arrived at a large sum of money, labelled "JHC CAT. QUARTERLY ROYALTY PAYMENT". Rinoa leaned back in her chair and reeled at the number of digits. She knew exactly what JHC CAT referred to: Julia Heartilly-Caraway's back catalogue. The royalties from her mother's music career had been left to her in her previous life, too, but had slowed to a trickle over the years as the modest sales of Julia's records, and occasionally sheet music, trailed off. Rinoa had been grateful for the small sum she had received four times a year; indeed, it had been her main source of subsistence during her first months in Timber. But this… The amount was now multiplied by more than a hundred. Twenty years of radio and television broadcasts had evidently kept Julia's music alive. Had Rinoa been paid every time 'Eyes on Me' was played on the radio, she wondered? Perhaps her mother's piano compositions had underscored the protagonist's emotions in a popular television drama or film. A world with uninterrupted broadcast media suddenly seemed very different to the one Rinoa grew up in.

_Well, I guess this is why I don't have a job,_ she frowned. _Looks like I've been flitting around, living off money that I haven't earned._ Rinoa didn't like that idea of herself at all.

She had made little progress in figuring out her connection to Timber in this life. Her conversations with Caraway had been sparse and superficial. She could admit to herself that she'd been too caught up with reuniting with Squall to delve into the unknown expanse that was her relationship with her father. As the days passed, it bothered her more. That evening, she purposely remained in his study until his return, curled up in an armchair with a stack of books.

He arrived sometime after ten, closing the door quietly.

"Mrs. Diviney tells me you've been reading in here a lot lately."

"Yes, I have."

He strode over to the desk and started to unbutton his heavy coat. "Any particular reason?"

Rinoa closed the book she had been reading. "I'm trying to work out who I am, I suppose."

General Caraway nodded approvingly. "Not uncommon for a young person of your age. What have you come up with?"

"I'm not really sure." She studied his face: he was open, ready to engage with her. "Can I ask you? What kind of a person do you think I am?"

Caraway slid off his coat and folded it over the chair of his desk. "You're kind-hearted. Stubborn. Prone to reacting emotionally, and not especially given to thinking plans out in advance." At her slight frown, he added, "Rinoa, don't ask for my opinion if you don't wish to hear it. You're empathetic to the suffering of others. That's a strength if you do something about it, but a weakness if you don't."

"And have I been any good at that? Doing something about it?"

Caraway's eyes searched her face. "I don't believe you need me to tell you the answer to that."

_Yes, I do._ She let out a sigh as he left the room. The man was infuriating, even unintentionally.

As she prepared for bed, Rinoa considered Caraway's assessment of her character. It seemed a fair approximation of who she felt herself to be. _Perhaps I'm the same person. I just have to work out what I want to do in this life. And it has to involve more than spending my way through Mom's royalty checks._

* * *

She left after breakfast the next morning, determined to spend the day letting her feet carry her around Deling City, with no particular destination in mind. Her hometown was finally hers to discover, and it felt good to do so.

Rinoa reveled in the sense of freedom and sheer joy she felt while wandering around the capital city, completely anonymously. She browsed through the clothing and accessory shops that lined the streets of Galbadia Parade; she sat by the fountain in Deling Central Park and felt the spray settle into her hair. She enjoyed a delectably crispy apricot tart with a black coffee at a patisserie, watching the smartly-dressed Galbadian citizens pass by from her seat on the terrace. Spared at last from those constant fearful glances, the mental exhaustion that had accumulated over the last three years of living as a renowned Sorceress was lifting away, little by little. She now understood, viscerally, the damage that anxiety had wrought on her, how much it had changed her from who she used to be. Rinoa felt as if she was sixteen again, carefree and with an unknown future stretching in front of her. Whether or not it would include Squall, she could live in this world. She smiled to herself at the realization. _I can._

There was a bittersweetness in the knowledge that she could, now, survive without Squall, and he without her. She knew there would always be a part of her that grieved for the closeness they had known in their Sorceress-Knight bond, how inexorably their lives, thoughts and minds had entwined. She would never feel it again. How the edges of Squall had seeped into her, and she had flowed back into him, until they were never quite sure where the boundary between them lay. How had Doctor Kadowaki described it once? _Extreme codependency in a supernatural form._ She would mourn its loss. But it had to be worth it, to know Squall would live without being bound to her. Free.

_Free from me._

Rinoa's thoughts were abruptly hijacked by shock as her eyes settled on a passer-by standing at the crossing opposite the cafe. A familiar, slender figure, her honey-blonde hair piled on her head in an elegant bun. Quistis Trepe - _surely, it must be -_ was waiting to cross the road, dressed smartly in a gray suit with a pencil skirt, a slim briefcase in one hand.

Rinoa hastily slipped a ten-gil note under her empty coffee cup and left her seat on the terrace as Quistis crossed and turned down the broad street, heading towards the center of the business district. Rinoa followed, pulled along by the force of a million questions, love, and guilt; _when Laguna told me I'd killed you, I couldn't even remember doing it._

This Quistis still had the same brisk, no-nonsense walk, the same perfect poise. Rinoa pursued her for two streets, then three, until her rational mind caught up and demanded what the hell, exactly, she planned to say when she caught up with her friend. _Remember me? Hey, it's great that you're not dead!_

...What was the point?

So Rinoa slowed to a halt, and let Quistis move further and further out of sight, the clack of her heels on the sidewalk becoming lost among the other sounds.

* * *

Rinoa sat on Ellone's sofa a day later, her legs tucked under her, cradling a hot cocoa, listening to Ellone talk about the further memories she had shared with Squall in the days since their meeting.

"I actually think he's starting to believe it. I mean, he won't accept that his memories aren't real. We don't know if they are or not, anyway. But he seems to be coming round to the idea that there was another reality that you and I experienced, and that we're completely clueless about this one."

"It's a lot to ask him to believe."

Ellone nodded, a shadow flitting across her face. "Rin. I haven't told him that he…you know… died. I'm not planning to. I don't know how a person could react to knowing something like that."

Rinoa gazed down into the dregs of her cocoa. "I don't want him to know, either. But I hate lying to him."

Ellone was regarding her with a searching look, a hint of a smirk playing around her mouth. "You two seemed to be picking up where you left off."

"We're not. That was my fault… We can't. It wouldn't be fair to him."

Ellone raised an eyebrow, and Rinoa shook her head firmly. "No. It's got to be his choice this time. No vows, no bond. Just him deciding whether or not he wants to be with me." She put the cup down, ready to voice her reasons. "It was always in the back of my mind… if he weren't my Knight, would he ever have loved me? Before Ultimecia possessed me, I thought maybe he was starting to like me, but I never felt sure… I always wondered if everything that happened between us after that point was because he became my Knight without realizing it. If I were never a Sorceress, if we'd just been two teenagers who dated, would it even have gone anywhere…? He could barely tolerate me at first."

Ellone's expression was skeptical, but she remained silent, so Rinoa continued. "This time round, he can choose. He could find someone more suited to him, someone calm and rational, like Quistis…"

Ellone cut her off flatly. "Squall didn't love Quisty. He loves you, you dolt."

"And what good did that do him? I murdered him."

"But he's alive. We brought him back, and he still loves you. He can't understand why, but he does."

"Did he say that?" Rinoa asked, eyes wide.

Ellone snorted. "C'mon, this is still Squall we're talking about, Oakwright or not. Of course he didn't say it. But it's in his eyes, the same as it always was."

Every part of Rinoa begged to believe that, but her mind was resolute. "I have to let him decide, this time round."

"Do you want me to ask him if he's ready to see you?"

"No. I'll wait for him." _This time, I'll be the one waiting for you._

* * *

It was eight days after the teahouse, after the Balamb fish, that Ellone called to inform Rinoa that Squall was wondering if she would meet him on his lunch break, at the same park they had walked through together in South Deling.

"He won't say much, when it comes to the topic of you. But I think you've been on his mind," Ellone had told her.

Squall had been right; the park was now packed with picnic-goers, chatting and laughing under the clouds of pink blossoms. Squall's tree - she could not think of it any other way - remained stubbornly out of sync with the rest, the majority of its flowers now lying trodden on the ground, its green leaves instead bursting out eagerly towards the sun.

Squall was leaning against it, and hadn't noticed her. He had on a dark plaid shirt pushed up to his elbows, and heavy canvas workman's pants. She smiled at the impossibility of it all.

"Hey."

"Oh. Hi." He gawped at her slightly, and she watched him try, and fail, to collect himself.

"Are you okay?"

He exhaled self-consciously. "Yeah… I thought I was just about prepared to be normal around you, but I'm… not."

"All too weird?"

"Mm. This would be a lot easier if I thought you were totally batshit. Uh, no offense."

She grinned. _This is a good sign, surely?_ "So you _don't_ think I'm batshit?"

"You come across as pretty sane." His eyes wandered around her face for a moment, then drifted off to the cherry blossoms, a slight crease settling into his brow. "Being around you confuses me." His tone was quiet, almost vulnerable.

She watched as thoughts appeared to come and go across his face, and felt both grateful and sad that they were no longer hers to share. "Do you feel like you believe it? Everything Elle showed you?"

"I've given up thinking about whether I believe it or not. It was making my brain ache. But the more of the memories I see, the less strange it all feels. I don't mean that I remember them," he said emphatically. "Ellie's got these theories about my subconscious recognizing it all. I don't know. I don't actually care." He met her eyes then, with that stubborn determination that she knew so well. "I'm not ever going to believe that my memories aren't real. They're real to me. They happened to _me._ If I start doubting that, I'll lose myself."

Rinoa gently nodded, hoping he would know that she had no wish to deny his past. "I understand. I don't want to doubt my memories, either."

He hesitated. "I asked her to show me some more of yours, too. Sorry. I should probably have asked you first."

"I don't mind. What did you see?"

A smile she couldn't identify crossed his lips. Embarrassment, perhaps, or amusement. "The night we first met."

"Oh. At the ball." She smiled at the memory, one of their dearest. _I'm glad you saw us there._

Squall raised an eyebrow slightly. "I can see why you made an impression on me. That dress was _really_ short."

Rinoa grinned back at him. _Are we flirting now?_ "Well, you looked pretty hot yourself in your dress uniform. Did you hear the first thing I ever said to you?"

"Yeah," he smirked. " _You're the best looking guy here._ I couldn't believe it when you said that."

"Guess I was a little forward."

He cocked his head to one side. "I bet I loved that."

"No, actually, you thought I was an annoying brat for a long time."

"Did I? What a moron." He was smiling now, and Rinoa let herself be lost in the smile for a moment before she replied.

"You were right, I was kind of a brat. But I grew up a lot with everything we went through."

Squall's gaze floated away again as he lapsed into thought, and she joined him in watching a pair of siblings, barely more than toddlers, giggle as they threw fistfuls of blossoms in the air.

"You and him… it sounds like you were pretty happy together."

Rinoa paused, as guilt began to tug her back down to reality. "It's hard to use the word 'happy'. We loved each other, of course we did… There were a lot of painful memories too. Both of us were damaged by the things that happened in our lives." _And then I let it destroy both of us completely._

She turned her face to look at him, to really look at him properly; and he was watching her, seemingly at a loss, and they were silent together.

_Do I have the right? To have you in my life again?_

Rinoa couldn't find the answer in herself, and left it to him to choose. "Where do we go from here? Do you want to be friends?"

Squall's eyebrows drew together. "That's a really difficult question."

"Oh."

"I'm not… I'm not sure 'friends' is what either of us are thinking, is it?"

She waited.

"It would be fairly pointless to pretend there's no attraction going on here. But I can't be your boyfriend, Rinoa. He's not me." He looked away awkwardly. "You might _think_ you feel the same way about me as you did about him, but how can you?"

"Because you're the same person." Even as she said it, she knew Squall did not agree.

He frowned. "But… you don't know that. You don't know me."

"I guess I don't," she replied with resignation.

"And I don't know you."

"No."

Squall was silent, then surprised her by saying, "Look. What if you and I try to get to know each other, in as normal a way as we can manage?"

"That sounds good to me. But is it what you want?"

"I… You really confuse me, Rinoa. Like I said." He sighed and stared ahead at the row of cherry trees. "I can't promise you anything. I also can't seem to stop thinking about you. I've been veering back and forth between trying to ignore it and letting myself wonder about you, about what any of this means…"

"It's all too much, isn't it?"

"It might be." His quiet admission hung in the air between them, and Rinoa's remorse grew.

"I'm sorry. Telling you, asking Elle to show you… it was completely selfish. That's something you'll soon find out about me, if we do get to know one another."

"What?"

She gave a crooked smile."That I'm selfish."

He shrugged. "Everyone is."

"I'm… I'm just sorry, Squall."

Squall exhaled raggedly, and closed his eyes. When he opened them a second later, the tension had drained away. "It's all right. Rinoa, listen. All this time, you've been apologizing about how strange this is for me, but it must be crazy for you, too. I mean, from your perspective, the whole world's changed. All that's happened to me is my sister has some kind of weird amnesia, and this beautiful girl who says she's in love with me has appeared from nowhere," he said mildly. He met her eyes with a teasing smile. "So I figure that I've got it easy in comparison."

"Damn you, Leonhart," Rinoa cursed, with feeling. "Having a happy childhood has made you way too charming. At least before you were so socially awkward that I never had to worry about fighting off other girls."

Squall held her eyes with amusement. "I don't think you have to worry about other girls right now, either," he said, and Rinoa cursed him again in her mind; she stood no chance against this onslaught. _You deserve this,_ she thought, as she stood on tiptoes to give him a chaste kiss on the lips, lingering more than she ought to.

Squall gazed down at her through half-closed lashes when she pulled away. "Did you listen to _any_ of what I said before?" he chided, but he was smirking.

"I know, but you brought that one on yourself."

"It won't be fair if you keep using this chemistry we have to your advantage, you know." His expression was serious now, and Rinoa knew that the last thing she wanted was for him to feel manipulated.

"That was the last time. I promise," she said, meaning it. "I'll wait for you to make the next move."

He nodded. "Okay. Can I have your number?"

She hadn't expected that. "Oh, um…"

Squall raised his eyebrows. "That was my move."

"It's just that Caraway gets weird about boys calling the house," she rushed to explain. "Or at least he used to. The new Caraway's suspiciously mellow, but I don't know…"

She belatedly realized that Squall was staring at her in astonishment. " _General_ Caraway? _That's_ your father?"

"Oh… I guess we never got round to that topic. Yeah. He is. But don't worry. I've never let what he thinks stop me."

Squall mouth was still half-open. "I shouldn't think he'll be happy about his daughter kissing a carpenter from Winhill."

"He wasn't happy about it when you were a mercenary commander, either, but we didn't care. Well, a lot of that was because he thought you were a cold-blooded killer," and she saw that Squall looked uncomfortable, so she hurriedly added, "which you _weren't_ , you were just in a situation where you had to fight. And he also worried that I'd be widowed before I was twenty-five."

Squall's expression was thoughtful. "Rin? Are you saying we were married?

"Oh. No. We talked about it, though. We were going to wait a couple more years." She looked up at him tenderly. "You called me Rin just now. You always used to do that."

Squall smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I called you that because Ellie - Elle - calls you that when she talks about you."

"She calls me that because _you_ did," pointed out Rinoa, and Squall screwed up his eyes.

"Dammit. If I try to think about how cause and effect works with this thing, my head starts to hurt."

Rinoa laughed. "It's probably best not to think about it. But I'd like it if you called me Rin sometimes."

He nodded. "Elle and Rin. I'll have to practice those. Okay, so I'll get _Elle_ to call you. Maybe we could all meet during my lunch breaks on the days when she only has evening shifts. How about we start off there?"

"Casual, friendly lunch dates, right?" She tried to keep her tone light.

"Mm. I don't think you and I should do dinner dates alone for the time being, what with the whole 'I'm not your boyfriend' thing."

"In case I launch myself at you again?"

"Essentially, yes."

"You want to avoid any more Rinoa-shaped projectile missiles." Her forced smile masked her internal sigh. _At least I can joke about the fact that the love of my life doesn't want to sleep with me in this universe._

Squall wouldn't meet her eye. "I wasn't planning on phrasing it like that."

She nodded and smiled up at him, genuinely this time. _Be grateful for what you've got, Heartilly. "_ I think I can just about restrain myself if we confine our meetings to your lunch break."

* * *

Reaching an agreement with Squall somehow helped Rinoa to turn her mind back to the question of what she wanted to do with her new life. She scoured the job listings in the local newspapers, but as - at least, as far as she knew - a high school dropout, the options open to her were fairly few. She returned to her study sessions in Caraway's office, telling herself that acquiring a convincing knowledge of the world she now lived in would be a prerequisite to seeking her role in it.

Her father received various periodicals, some duller than others, but she read through them all the same. It was when she was browsing _Military Matters, Volume XXVII_ that a wicked smile and bright blue eyes leapt out at her from a photograph, making her gasp in delight.

_Hand-to-hand Combat Special: What the Military Can Learn from Pro Fighters_

_Balamb native Zell Dincht, 20, has been invited as a guest instructor to a three-day training event for G-Army close-combat specialists._

She clutched the magazine to her chest, wishing she was hugging Zell himself, feeling his rock-hard arm muscles crush her in one of his fierce embraces. That he would still be a martial artist was no surprise to her; it was surely in his blood. His facial tattoo and ridiculous hair remained just as eye-catching as before. She smiled as she scanned the article. Zell was evidently keeping himself busy. It was impossible to tell from a photograph, of course, but he looked happy enough.

_I'm glad you're out there. Maybe you all are._

* * *

The first of Rinoa's lunch-time dates with Squall was at a cafe in Central Deling, where Ellone joined them. Rinoa was fairly sure that Squall had invited his sister out of nervousness that Rinoa would fail in her efforts to stay platonic. She didn't mind. If having Ellone there helped Squall to relax, she was grateful for her presence.

Squall and Ellone, having already eaten, were playing cards when Rinoa arrived, their dark heads bowed over the table. Squall scowled as Ellone gleefully picked up his top-rated card and slid it into her own deck.

"Dammit, Ellie. When the hell did you get so good at Triple Triad? You used to suck at it."

"I grew up on a ship. We didn't have much else to entertain ourselves with." Ellone's eyes twinkled. "But Squall, you were even better than me. You won amazing cards off people all around the world."

Rinoa beamed in place of a greeting as she sat down. "Including my old man. That _really_ pissed him off. It was great."

Squall gave her his _Oh-shit-you-mean-General-Caraway_ look again, and glowered as he started to put his cards away, his ears faintly pink. "This conversation is getting too weird for me."

Rinoa smiled, patted Ellone on the shoulder and went off to the counter to order a lunch plate of salad and a buckwheat wrap. She returned with her food to hear Ellone talking animatedly about her job at the restaurant. Squall was gazing intently at the wall behind her with a small frown on his face.

"Are you okay?" Rinoa asked him quietly.

Squall twitched and blinked at her. "Huh? Oh, it's nothing."

Something clicked in her memory, and it hit Rinoa where she recognized his expression from. It was exactly the same face he would wear when they were out fighting monsters and he was tracking a prey that hadn't noticed him yet. She twisted around to examine the wall. It didn't seem to have anything out of the ordinary on it; a framed painting of the Deling Victory Arch, and a small built-in shelf holding several bright ceramic cups and a candlestick.

"Seriously, what is it?" asked Ellone, craning her head to see.

"Nothing." He scratched the back of his head and looked embarrassed. "All right. That shelf isn't straight. It's driving me mad."

Ellone stared at him and started to giggle. "You're such a pro. I can't believe my little brother is a carpenter even when he's off duty."

Squall shot her an annoyed glare. "I can't help it. They've put that bracket at least two centimeters higher than the other one. It's obscene."

Rinoa only realized how long she had been staring at him when Squall and Ellone both turned to face her questioningly.

"You're so _cute_ ," she said, helplessly.

Squall flushed a dull red and looked back at the shelf. "Whatever."

"You are," she insisted. "You'd devote yourself to your work no matter what job you had, wouldn't you? That's so… you."

He looked increasingly uncomfortable as she spoke. "Can we stop talking about me?" he muttered, and Rinoa had to remind herself how awkward it must be for him to hear an appraisal of his character from a girl he'd only just met. "Sorry," she said, contrite.

She munched on her salad for a few moments, then remembered the news she had wanted to share. "Oh! Elle, there was an article about Zell in one of my father's military magazines. He's a professional fighter!"

Squall looked at her in surprise. "Zell Dincht?"

Ellone rounded on him, suddenly breathless. "You know him!?"

"He's reasonably famous, in the martial arts world anyway." He shrugged. "Alex was really into all that when we were around sixteen. He used to hide the TV remote when it was on. So I got pretty used to seeing the back of Dincht's head while he beat the stuffing out of some other guy."

Rinoa absorbed the idea of Squall only knowing Zell through a TV screen. "I'm so glad he's alive and well. Do you think they all are? Do you think the orphanage existed here? I told you how I thought I saw Quistis in the street, right?"

Ellone nodded wistfully. "It might well have been her. Who knows what they're all doing." She sighed. "I've been thinking a lot about the orphanage, too. About Matron. I wonder what happened to her, here. If she was never a Sorceress…" Her eyes were distant. "After I find Laguna, I want to go looking for her. I miss her. Even though things went… wrong for a while, she was the only mother I ever knew. I mean, other than Raine."

Squall shifted in his seat, and Rinoa could see he was fighting down a rising frustration with his sister. He laid his hand on her arm, and said gently, "You've got a mom now, Ellie."

"Elle," she reminded him, frowning.

"All right. _Elle._ You should give her a call. Just talk to her. Listen to her voice. Whatever happened to you, she was always your mom."

Ellone's face crumpled. "I guess you're right. I… don't know what to say to her."

Squall leaned back in his seat and smiled faintly. "That's not generally a problem with our mom. She'll tell you about everything going on in Winhill and forget to ask what you've been up to."

Ellone gave her uncertain agreement, and Rinoa could see the fear in her friend. She was sympathetic; she herself had no idea how to talk to Caraway, and she'd grown up with him, or at least another version of him. Ellone's challenge was far greater, with the entire Oakwright family having been brought into existence in the blink of an eye.

Rinoa was left alone with Squall as she finished her lunch, Ellone having tactfully departed to 'give you two some space'. Even now, his eyes were flicking back to the offending shelf behind her, and Rinoa hid a smirk behind her hand.

She started talking to him about her awkwardness with Caraway, about her desire to find herself a job, and about her frustration with the gaps in her knowledge about the world and her own life. Something crossed Squall's face as she mentioned Timber, and she stopped.

"What?"

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that." He looked so uneasy that she thought she'd done something wrong. "I'm actually going to Timber next week for work. For three nights. There's these new houses going up where they tore down the old barracks, and… my firm is putting the kitchens in."

"Oh, well, that's good, right?" She looked at him expectantly. Something was clearly bothering him.

"I was thinking… if you came with me, you could ask around and maybe work out if people knew you there."

She smiled at him, genuinely pleased. "That's really thoughtful of you, Squall. I'd love to." She leaned across the table and peered closely at him. "But only if you tell me why you're so uncomfortable about it."

He scratched his temple. "Where I'm staying… the inn on the new side of town only has five rooms, and the building firm's booked them all up. It's a twin room, I mean, separate beds and everything…" He stared at her in sudden realization. "This is a really bad idea, isn't it?"

"Why?" She was almost enjoying his embarrassment, and felt slightly guilty about it.

"Because obviously I know it's unfair to tell you I can't be your boyfriend, then invite you to share a hotel room with me. Look, this isn't me hitting on you, okay? I don't want you to think I've got ulterior motives here."

"It's all right," she assured him cheerfully, but Squall's expression was skeptical. "Really, it is. We slept in the same hotel room plenty of times when we were traveling, before we were ever a couple." _Except there were six of us,_ she omitted. "And on the Ragna- I mean, the airship, we all just slept wherever we could. I'm used to it."

He crossed his arms, and she sensed victory was near. "Well I'm not, but, I can try, I guess."

"You used to share a room with Alex, right?"

He looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "You're not Alex."

* * *

Caraway had reacted with no surprise whatsoever when Rinoa nervously announced that she was heading off to Timber for a three-night stay. "Have a safe trip," he'd said, not even looking up from his paperwork. She desperately wanted to ask him why he wasn't trying to stop her, but couldn't think of a way to phrase it without sounding ridiculous.

"See you in a few days, then."

"Yes, Rinoa. Give them my regards."

_Give who?_ Caraway's pen flew back and forth across the paper, his face a mask of concentration, and she knew that now was not a time in which he would be forthcoming with the answers she hoped for. She turned and left the room.

_I suppose I'll find out soon enough._


	7. Chapter VII

**Chapter VII**

* * *

Rinoa stared out of the window of the train as it snaked its way across the green expanse that lay between Deling City and Timber. The start of the journey had been familiar to her, but as they left Galbadian soil and entered the new independent nation, she found herself looking out onto miles and miles of dense forest.

"I can't believe it. This was all cleared and logged… There was hardly any forest left. The army stripped it bare."

Squall squinted out of the window. "Sounds like your version of Vinzer Deling was a lot worse than he is now."

"Yes, he was, but…" She frowned. "A lot of what went on in Timber was directly carried out by my father. That's a big part of why I was estranged from him. He… the Caraway in this place has been different with me. I don't know what to make of him. So I guess his methods of running the G-Army might be different too." She turned to face Squall. "Do you know anything about him? His reputation?"

He shrugged. "I don't really follow politics. I've heard his name, but that's about it."

She sighed gently. "It's hard to work out what's changed and what hasn't, when I'm expected to know already. I don't know how to ask."

Squall was looking at her intently. "How are you coping with all this?"

She raised her eyebrows, surprised that he would ask. "Me?"

"You've basically lost everything and everyone you know, and you're starting from scratch."

She fiddled with Julia's ring as she pondered the question. "I don't know, really. But I don't feel alone. I have you, and Elle."

His head was tilted against the train seat. "Don't you miss where you came from?"

"No." _I'd already lost everything._ "There was so much suffering. Everything's better here."

"Even me?" he asked quietly.

"What?" Rinoa's look of incomprehension melted into a smile as she answered, "Finding you here is the best thing of all."

Squall didn't return her smile, and his brow furrowed. "I don't understand how you can see it like that. You had to leave him behind when it all changed, right? I can't be his replacement." His expression darkened. "I wouldn't _want_ to be someone's replacement."

She shook her head firmly. "It's not like that."

"Isn't it?" His tone was not accusing, but there was something like sadness in his eyes, and she wished she could kiss it away.

"You're not… You're _you_. You're not a replacement for anybody."

To Rinoa, it was simple: she loved Squall, and here he was. They were clashing again in a way they often had, which only served to heighten her conviction that he was the same man. Where Rinoa would see a straightforward solution, Squall would overthink a problem, always finding more complexity than she thought was necessary. Sometimes, she had to concede that he was right and she was being naive. But she couldn't concede this one. Squall was Squall, no matter what experiences he'd had in his life. Wasn't that right?

His eyes told her that he didn't think so.

"I don't want you to feel like I'm expecting you to be someone else. Okay, Squall?"

"Mm." She recognized Squall's noncommittal grunt, and let the subject drop as the train raced ever closer to Timber Station.

* * *

Squall led her away from the station to a section of the town that she had never seen before; in her time, the space had been occupied by a sprawling military complex belonging to the occupying forces. The tree-lined roads were wide and cleanly-paved, and the houses were smart and newish looking, with many still under construction. Her head whirled as she turned from side to side, a completely unknown Timber staring back at her from every direction.

"You okay, Rinoa?"

"It's just… really different," she replied, hopelessly.

Squall nodded with the uncertainty of a man who had no idea how to provide reassurance. "The inn's over there."

The New Timber Inn was a small, friendly establishment with a beaming landlady who seemed to want to chat far more than Squall allowed her to. Rinoa snuck her an apologetic smile, vowing to delve into conversation with her later when Squall was at work. After Squall had checked them in, they carried their bags up to the bedroom - clean and charmingly decorated, with separate beds, as Squall had so keenly stressed. Rinoa sat down on one of the beds, wondering whether to unpack first or relax, when she realized that Squall was still standing, a smaller work bag grasped in his hand.

"I've got to head straight over to the site, so…"

"Oh. Of course."

"I should be finished by around seven, if you want to meet back here for dinner."

Rinoa smiled her agreement, and after Squall left, she leapt up from the bed and splashed water on her face in the bathroom. Now that the town was hers to explore, she felt a hammering in her chest that was both excitement and nervousness. What secrets could this new Timber reveal to her?

She strode off from the inn, then faltered, unsure of which direction to take. She decided to head back to the main street of the new part of town, which she had walked along with Squall from the station, and followed it until it opened onto a large, gleaming square. She crossed over, in dazed wonder, to the elegant red-brick building that stood tall on one side of the square, and gasped when she was close enough to read the metallic lettering that was fixed onto the brickwork: _Government of the Republic of Timber._

Timber's flag, three brown pine trees against a green background, fluttered high above on a pole at the top of the building. Rinoa felt the slow spread of goosebumps across her arms as she stared up at it. The flag that the Galbadians had strictly prohibited for twenty years was flying proudly. At last, Timber was free.

Rinoa stayed in the square for a long while, watching people go in and out of the government offices. On most faces she saw enthusiasm and cheerful smiles, often laughter; there were very few who were frowning or haggard-looking like the civil servants back in Deling usually were. She felt a vicarious thrill to see such purpose in their steps, determination in their eyes. The people of Timber were taking charge of their own destiny, and it made her heart sing.

As time passed, Rinoa could no longer ignore the complaining of her stomach, and reluctantly left the square to search for a cafe. She found one quickly in the next street, and on approaching the counter she gave a small start when she recognized the owner: Francesca DiMarco, who had previously worked at the Timber Hotel.

Francesca broke into a friendly smile. "Rinoa! Hey sweetie! Back to visit?"

_She knows me she knows me-_ "Uh, yes," Rinoa stammered.

"That's great! Zone should be in later. He's been coming in on his day off lately." As Rinoa grappled with the information that Zone was still her friend, Francesca beamed again and said, "So, what can I get you?"

Rinoa placed her order and ate quietly in a corner, her nerves rising to high alert every time the door swung open. Sure enough, after an hour or so had passed, a familiar head of black spiky hair popped through the doorway, and a grinning Zone trotted over to her table.

"Hey, Rin," he said casually. "Didn't realize you were in town."

She wanted to leap up and hug him, or burst into tears, but he seemed so thoroughly unruffled by her presence that she did her best to manufacture an appearance of calm.

"I'm really glad to see you," she told him, with feeling.

"Yeah, me too." He smiled widely. "What's it been, three weeks? It always feels like more."

_I was here only three weeks ago?_ Rinoa stared at him and realized it was useless to keep up a front; she needed answers, and she was almost sure she could trust Zone to give them. "Zone, I… kind of need your help."

"Sure, what's up?"

Remembering the excuse Ellone had given her restaurant manager, and with no better option springing to mind, Rinoa sent Zone a silent apology and decided to plow ahead. _"_ This is pretty embarrassing, but I had a head injury and my memory's all kind of… scrambled."

He leaned away from her. "Whoa. Seriously?"

"Yeah." She cringed internally at the deception, as well as the sheer cliche of it.

He broke into a cheerful smile. "Well, at least you haven't forgotten me, huh?"

"Of course I haven't, Zone! You're my friend. But… I feel terrible saying this, but I can't really remember how we know each other."

"Oh, come on," he half-laughed, but his eyes were anxious.

"I mean it. We were in the Owls together, right? You, me, and Watts? Is that… is that right?"

"Yep." He nodded happily, and Rinoa had to restrain herself from yelling at him to provide more information.

"So what kind of stuff did we do?"

He shrugged. "The usual Timber resistance stuff. You know."

_But I don't, not anymore._ She wondered how the Owls' most ambitious plan could have panned out in a world without SeeD. "Did we… did we try to kidnap President Deling?"

Zone's jaw dropped noticeably. "Huh?"

"Oh," she said, embarrassed. "I guess that part was a dream or… something."

"You were really serious, weren't you?" Zone's eyes widened. "Man, your memory sure did get messed up."

"So we didn't do anything violent?"

He stared at her. "Nope. No way. We were more about protests, sit-ins, and leaflet campaigns." Rinoa must have looked unimpressed, because he added, "Really _heavy_ leaflet campaigns."

She nodded and sighed. "Ah, well. So I guess we had no effect on the liberation whatsoever."

"What?" Zone's dark eyebrows knotted together. "Rin, do you honestly not remember anything? It was pretty much all down to you."

Her mouth fell open. " _Me?_ How can it have been?"

"Do you seriously-"

Starting to feel impatient, she cut him off. "Zone, just tell me what happened. From start to finish."

"Well, we were at our base - the disused train carriage, you remember that, right?"

"Right," Rinoa smiled. At least _something_ had been the same.

"And Caraway turned up, and -"

"What?" she interrupted, dismayed. "Do you mean I just got my father to pull some strings or something?"

"No, it wasn't like that at all. And look, even if was your family connections that made it possible, no-one here gives a damn, you know? The end was so much more important than the means." Zone looked at her seriously, and she waited for him to continue the story.

"So he turned up, on his own - in civilian clothes, by the way. You shouted at him and locked yourself in your compartment. He just sat outside and waited, real quiet. It was like, four hours or something before you opened the door. And he wasn't even mad when you did. He said he understood by now how serious you were, and he agreed with us that Timber's liberation was economically viable. Then he said that several members of Deling's cabinet were privately unhappy about how much funds were being sunk into the occupation, year after year. He thought there was a real chance for change, but it needed to be made through the legal process, because if we tried to stage a coup, we'd be crushed."

Rinoa was left reeling. Her father had said that? It was calculated, cool and logical, which was indeed like him, but… the idea of Caraway covertly supporting Timber's independence was one that had never occurred to her.

"So he made you an offer. Go home with him to Deling City, and work together with his team of advisors on drafting up a white paper proposing the feasibility of independence. You agreed, and you worked really hard on it. It was like, a five-point plan…" Zone counted on his fingers. "Military withdrawal, economic independence, a new system of governance and law enforcement, taxation and uh… social welfare. You studied insanely hard, Rin. You interviewed researchers from Galbadia University and stuff like that. You worked with all these different people to draw up each part of the plan. And it paid off, because the proposal was accepted by Deling's government."

Rinoa gaped at him. She couldn't imagine herself being capable of such a task. "When did all this happen?"

"Well, I guess it was about three years ago that your dad showed up here. Then it took you about six months to put the paper together. The government passed the proposal four months or so after that, and the military withdrawal was a staggered process over twelve months. Our official Independence Day was just over a year ago." He peered at her. "This seriously rings no bells with you? Oh, man. I'm sure it'll come back to you when your head gets better… You did a great job, Rin. I never saw anyone work so hard. Caraway kept your name off the paperwork, you know. I don't think even ol' Vinzer knows that his army general's daughter was the one who did most of the legwork." Zone leaned forward and clutched her hand. "But your friends in Timber know, and we'll never forget it." He raised an eyebrow. "Even if _you_ have."

Rinoa stared at him, and after a while he loosened his grip, giving her a bashful grin. "Thanks for telling me," she said, eventually. "I really appreciate it. I just… I can't believe I could ever do something like that. Or that my father would go that far to help us." She shook her head in disbelief.

"You may not agree with me Rin, but your old man's a pretty cool guy."

She twisted her lips. "Maybe he is." She owed Caraway a lot more than she knew; she had a lot of ground to make up. Rinoa studied Zone's face, and a thought occurred.

"Zone, is your father alive?"

He cocked his head slightly. "Yeah, of course. Why?"

"And Watts' dad, too?"

"Yep. Once the wise old leaders of the Forest Owls, now the wisest old geezers in the interim government. Still best friends. Still bickerin' their heads off."

Rinoa nodded with a small smile, deeply thankful that the invading Galbadian army had not been as vicious as in her reality, and that her friends in the Owls had been able to grow up with their families intact.

Then she took a deep breath and asked the question that had been weighing on her since the first morning she had awoken in the Caraway mansion.

"Um… did I ever… have a dog?

Zone leaned back in his seat, looking at her with concern. "Yeesh, Rin. You're telling me you even forgot about Angelo?"

Her pulse racing in her ears, she asked nervously, "Is she… is she still alive?"

He smiled reassuringly. "Yeah, she's doing fine! You've been coming to see her every few weeks."

Rinoa closed her eyes to fully appreciate the sweet wave of relief and joy that washed over her. _Thank the gods_ , she thought.

"Why isn't she with me? Why would I leave her behind?"

"Oh, that was part of your dad's deal. Caraway wouldn't let you keep her in the mansion. At first you were outraged and said you were going to stay here, but I gotta hand it to you, you decided to put Timber first. Angelo's happy, though. Don't worry."

"Where is she?" she demanded, feeling a desperate physical need to bury her head in Angelo's neck and whisper apologies to her a hundred times over.

"Watts takes care of her. She has a little house in the yard for when he's at work. Honestly, she's fine, Rin."

"Can I see her? Now?"

Zone's eyes wandered over to the counter regretfully, then he shrugged. "Ehh, all right then. I'll get take-out and go with you."

* * *

Watts' house was a modest, one-story building on the edge of the new suburb, backing onto a forest. "Angelo loves it here," Zone explained, and Rinoa could admit that despite the pain of their separation, this was clearly a better home for a big, energetic dog than the spotless interior and carefully manicured lawn of the Caraway mansion.

From a distance, she saw a brownish blur hurl itself against the fence, and Rinoa's feet carried her as she broke into a run, crashing into the railings as Angelo's paws scrabbled up against the metal, her excited breath heaving loudly, her tongue poking through the fence, messily licking up the tears that trickled down her owner's cheeks.

Rinoa forced both hands through gaps in the railings and clutched at Angelo's thick fur, whispering her love to her over and over again. "I'm so sorry, baby girl. I missed you so much."

She screwed her eyes shut as she remembered guiltily that she had no idea what had happened to Angelo in her old life. A few months prior, when Rinoa had lost her fight against the worst impulses of her Sorcery, she had left Angelo and Squall behind in Balamb in the middle of the night and headed for the fractured islands northeast of Esthar, where she'd planned to establish her base while her powers grew and consolidated. And then Squall had found her, and… Angelo's wet nose poked against her cheek, pulling her away from those dark, dreamlike memories. "Was it only humans that had their memories rewritten?" Rinoa whispered. "Do you remember what I was? All the things I did? I'm so, so, sorry."

Rinoa blinked away her tears and saw nothing but love and joy in Angelo's limpid eyes. _How is it that animals are so forgiving? We don't deserve them._

She ruffled the fur around Angelo's neck and straightened up to address Zone, who was standing behind them with a sympathetic expression on his face. "Can we take her out?" she pleaded.

"Sorry Rin, I don't have a key. You'll have to wait till Watts is around."

She crouched back down. "Sorry, baby. Wait for me, okay?" She planted a kiss on the top of Angelo's nose, the only part of her that jutted out through the railings.

Zone shifted, and she turned around to face him. "So are you gonna stay with Watts this time too?" he asked.

"No. I couldn't remember how we knew each other, so I booked a room at the inn on the new side of town."

"Well, now you know, you can cancel and stay with him and Angelo like usual." He smiled brightly.

"No, it's okay, I… actually, I came with someone this time."

"A guy?"

"How did you know?

"'Cos your face has gone pink." He grinned. "He better be taking good care of our Princess, or he'll have me to deal with."

_You haven't changed,_ she thought as she smiled back at him. "He is. But thanks, Zone."

"I'll be back at work tomorrow, but Watts will be on his day off. You could come by and spend the day with him and Angelo."

"I will. I'd love that. What is your job, anyway?"

"I work for the interim government, and so does Watts. Most of us do. One of the recommendations of your white paper was that the former resistance members should be involved in the new administration as much as possible, to maximize the chances of a peaceful transition. And the Galbadians stuck to it, to their credit. Hey, my dad's planing on running for office when the interim period ends. You could be looking at the son of the Prime Minister of Timber. That'd be awesome, right?" His eyes twinkled at her.

She beamed at him. "It would."

* * *

The reception room of the inn doubled as its restaurant, and Rinoa waited there for Squall to arrive in the evening. When he turned up he looked a little tired, and she smiled as she saw a fleck of sawdust on the shoulder of his shirt, a black grease-mark on his wrist. He sat down and joined her for a satisfying dinner of Timber's famed five-herb roast chicken, which Rinoa savored with delight.

"So did you find out anything?" he asked, after a while.

Rinoa glanced to her side. The other patrons were seated closer to her than at Francesca's cafe, and she was not comfortable being overheard.

"Yeah, I did. I think I should tell you back at the room, though." She leaned forward. "Tell me about the work you did today."

Squall frowned as he sliced into a piece of chicken. "There's no way you could possibly find it interesting."

"Try me."

"All right." His face was skeptical, but he started to talk. Rinoa let the words float gently over her head as she watched him speak, with his self-effacing manner, his halting descriptions, his hands moving as he occasionally punctuated with gestures. She caught a few words and phrases: 'assembling the units', something fairly long about 'hinges', and saw his eyebrows draw together as he concluded, "But the thing about granite worktops is, they're really heavy."

Squall was looking back at her with faint amusement and a hint of irritation. "Rin. Your eyes are glazing over."

"I'm listening," she insisted, unconvincingly.

"I've pretty much finished."

"It was nice… watching you talk."

He shook his head, a gentle flush creeping across his face. "You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to be using your ears as well."

"Yeah, sorry about that." She smiled sweetly at him, and he looked awkwardly down at his meal. _He's not comfortable with me staring. Gotta try to rein it in._

They finished their meal with minimal further conversation, and after ascending the stairs and entering the room, Rinoa flopped down on her bed and started to tell Squall about what she had learned from Zone. He listened carefully, his face giving little away, apart from his eyes, which were intent on Rinoa's face as she spoke.

She trailed off after explaining about the white paper for independence, wondering if Squall would find it all as unlikely-sounding as she herself did.

"That's… amazing, Rin."

She frowned at him. "But it wasn't _me_. It has nothing to do with me."

Squall's eyebrow was arched, a knowing expression on his face.

"What?"

"That's exactly how I feel when you and Ellie talk about the other Squall."

His comment hit her like a slap in the face. She believed, fervently, that the Squall in front of her was essentially the Squall she knew. So did that mean that she herself was somehow also the other Rinoa, who had worked so hard to put together the independence proposal? _Am I someone who_ could _have done that, if circumstances were different?_

"I… I'll try to keep that in mind when I talk about the past with you. I mean, _my_ past."

He nodded. "Thanks."

They lapsed into silence, as Rinoa came to a decision in her mind. _You're Squall, and I'm Rinoa. And that's all that really matters anymore._

She suddenly smiled as she thought of her happiest discovery. "Oh, Squall, I forgot to tell you. I found my dog."

"You had a dog?"

"It turns out I still do, although Caraway won't let me take her back to Deling. She's being looked after by my friend. I wasn't sure if she even existed here… I was so, so glad to see her. I can't even describe it."

"I like dogs," he responded amiably.

Rinoa grinned at him. "Oh, you were great with her. She adored you."

She swung her legs out and sprang off the bed, grabbing her pajamas and toothbrush as she headed to the bathroom. When she had finished preparing for bed she returned to the bedroom, stopping under the doorframe as she watched Squall slip his Griever pendent over his neck and place it carefully on the pinewood nightstand. Dressed in a white v-necked t-shirt and grey sweatpants, he looked so much like a skinnier Commander Leonhart that her breath caught slightly in her throat.

Squall gaped momentarily at her, his eyes wandering down to her baby blue, button-up flannel pajamas decorated cheerfully with a chocobo print. "Is that what you always wear to bed?"

She flicked her hair behind her ears, embarrassed. "I had more.. um… sophisticated nightwear when we lived together, but the stuff I keep at Caraway's mansion seems to all be designed for a ten-year-old."

He shook his head and gave her a small smile. "You look cute."

Rinoa thought he looked relieved. Perhaps he'd been worried that she would emerge from the bathroom in a negligee and attempt to seduce him. Then she rebuked herself for suddenly wishing she was doing exactly that right now. Images of intimate things she wanted to do with Squall barged their way into her mind's eye, and she reluctantly pushed them away. _No. There's no way I'm going to throw myself at him again,_ she told herself. _If anything happens here, it has to be because he wants it to._

Squall settled into the bed and started to fiddle with the alarm clock. "I've got an early start tomorrow, so you can just sleep as long as you like, okay?"

"Okay."

When he switched off the lamp, Rinoa found that sharing a room with her love wasn't the torture of confused temptation that she had feared; instead, it was comforting. She heard him slip into a deep sleep fairly quickly, and it filled her with peace to know he was there. She turned over to face the other wall, smiled to herself, and soon drifted away into dreams.

* * *

The room was slowly filling with light in the early morning when Rinoa heard the muffled sounds of Squall changing in the bathroom. The door closed softly, and she heard quiet footsteps; he was trying his best not to wake her. Part of her wanted to let him think he'd succeeded, but it lost out to her desire to see him, and she half-opened her eyes.

Squall was approaching the main door of the room, wearing a blue shirt, heavy-duty brown workman's pants with a beige toolbelt fastened around his hips, and scuffed brown boots on his feet. He gave a guilty start when he noticed her watching him.

"Sorry, I thought I'd manage to sneak out without waking you."

"I'm glad. It's the first time I've seen Squall the Carpenter. He's really hot," she said sleepily.

Squall snorted self-deprecatingly. "Yeah, right. I'll see you tonight, okay? I'll be pretty late, so go ahead and have dinner without me."

He left, and Rinoa dozed for another hour before hunger roused her awake. She ate a quick breakfast downstairs, chatted to the landlady about the pace of development in the new part of town, and set off towards the edge of the forest to knock on Watts' door.

"Welcome back, Princess!" Watts, bleary-eyed and without his customary bandanna, swung the door open with a bouncing Angelo at his side, and drew Rinoa into a bear-hug. "Just let me chug down my coffee and we'll take this girl out to the woods, what do you say?"

Watts was delighted to see her, and was sweetly accepting of her feigned memory loss. Rinoa found herself relaxing completely with him as they walked through the forest, Angelo joyfully bounding ahead. She grilled Watts for details of his job with the interim government, listening intently to the issues his department, Trade and Investment, were facing. It was clear how hard her friends were working. Watts was studying mountains of paperwork every night after returning home, determined not to let his lack of formal education stand in the way of playing a role in Timber's administration.

"You must be exhausted."

"I am, but it's all worth it. And you did it first, Rin. You showed us that the only way we're gonna get anywhere is grinding through it, one step at a time."

She shook her head. "That was… a drop in the ocean compared to what you guys are achieving. I'm so proud of you."

He swung an arm around her shoulder and grinned as he pushed an overhanging branch out of their way. "Thanks, Princess. These are exciting days for Timber. Damn, it's a good time to be alive."

She could agree with that.

* * *

Tired and happy, and stuffed after a hearty dinner at Watts' house with Angelo sleeping by her feet, Rinoa returned to the inn in the evening and waited for Squall at the counter as she sipped an iced coffee. She could feel a tall frame leaning over her shoulder from behind. "You waitin' for someone?" a deep voice murmured in her ear.

"Yes, my boyfriend, so don't bother," she said shortly, not bothering to turn round. Then the familiarity of the voice hit her and she spun around to stare into the handsome face of Irvine Kinneas. Even with no cowboy hat, and no trench coat, he still exuded that languid grace that had always set him apart. His long auburn hair dangled down as he leaned over her, the tip of his ponytail brushing her shoulder. Rinoa couldn't stop herself from beaming up at him in recognition, and Irvine smiled charmingly in response.

"Now that there's what they call mixed signals," he drawled. "Maybe it's me you're waitin' for after all?"

Rinoa giggled. Irvine's dreadful pick-up lines were evidently hard-wired into his genetics. "'Fraid not, but nice try," she replied, smiling. "I really _am_ waiting for my boyfriend."

He shrugged genially. "Ah, well. Lucky guy."

"Are you from around here?" she asked.

"Nah. I was stationed here as a cadet with the G-Army when it was still under occupation. I'm a free agent now, though. Wanted to drop by to see how Timber's gettin' on by itself. Curious, I guess."

"So what do you think? It seems to be doing pretty well, right?"

"Mmm. It was a long time coming, but it's good that it has." There was an earnest note in his voice as his pale blue eyes turned solemn. "It wasn't right, us being here."

"No, it wasn't," she agreed.

He shrugged again. "Never thought it'd happen, but where there's a will, there's a way, huh?"

Rinoa felt a movement at her side, and realized that Squall had quietly slipped next to her.

"Sorry I'm late, Rin," he said coolly, and when she looked up at him, his eyes were fixed on Irvine.

"The boyfriend, huh? Well, I'll leave you lovebirds to it." He inclined his head as if tipping an invisible cowboy hat, in a thoroughly Irvine-esque gesture.

"See you around, then," said Rinoa as he left, and she couldn't help but say it warmly. Squall seemed to stiffen slightly at her side, and she turned to him, wondering if she should apologize for referring to him as her boyfriend.

Squall was studying her, one eyebrow raised.

"Do you know that guy?" he asked.

"He's one of our dearest friends where I came from, but he doesn't know me here."

Squall's eyes narrowed. "He was totally hitting on you."

"Ah, he just needs to find the right girl," laughed Rinoa, wondering suddenly what Selphie Tilmitt might be doing in this world. She looked over at Squall's sullen face, surprised. "Are… are you jealous?"

" _Obviously,_ " Squall growled, and to Rinoa's delight he looped his arm around her waist and drew her to his side as they walked away from the counter and up the stairs to the second floor.

When they entered the room, Squall's arm was still around her, and it would be so easy to pull him closer, or to push him against the bed… She didn't think he'd resist. He was clearly attracted to her. She closed her eyes. _No_. _Keep your promise. No underhanded tactics._

"Still separate beds though, right?"

"I'm sorry, Rin."

"It's all right. Really, it is. I can't expect you to feel the same as I do." She pulled away from him, and tried to smile.

"It's not necessarily for the reasons you might think." He looked away from her, his face suddenly downcast. "Rinoa, I don't know who it is you see when you look at me. I want you to see… me."

She didn't know what to say to that. Rinoa watched him in silence as he headed into the bathroom and locked the door, and she soon heard the sounds of the shower running.

_But I do,_ she thought sadly. _Will you ever accept that?_

* * *

Watts had allowed her to borrow his spare key, so she spent the third and final day of her stay in Timber fussing over Angelo, just the two of them. Rinoa sent Angelo chasing after sticks in the forest; she cuddled up to her on Watts' sofa, stroking the dog's fur as she fell asleep; she depleted Watts' supply of dog treats and walked Angelo over to the pet shop to buy more. When the sun started to set, Watts arrived home from the government offices, take-out dinner in hand, and they ate together, talking about his day at work while Angelo snored loudly. It was fully dark by the time Rinoa reluctantly kissed the sleeping dog's head and returned Watts' key before bidding goodbye and making her way back to the inn.

Squall had told her he would be back after dinner, so she decided to wait in the bedroom instead, after surreptitiously checking the front room for signs of Irvine. She lay back on the bed, still fully clothed, wondering how long Squall would be. The clock showed nine-thirty, and he still had not returned.

It was almost ten when the room's phone rang, and the landlady announced that she was putting the caller through.

"Rinoa… I'm sorry." Squall's voice was oddly vacant.

"Hi," said Rinoa, trying to hide her worry. "Has your work run late?"

"You might laugh at this… I'm calling from the med clinic off the town square."

She sat up in the bed. "What? Are you hurt?"

"A bit, but I think you'll actually be kind of happy about it."

"That doesn't make any sense, Squall. Have you got a concussion or something?"

"Nah. I just had an accident at work. Not a serious one."

Rinoa's stomach plummeted. In her previous life, Squall's definition of 'not a serious injury' had included everything up to broken bones, severed arteries and one one occasion, being shot. "I'm coming over right now, okay?" She slammed down the phone and hurried out of the room.

When she arrived at Timber's central medical clinic and located his room, Squall was sitting upright in bed, a raw red cut slicing diagonally across his forehead and the bridge of his nose, with several knotted black stitches holding the broken skin together.

"Just the same as his, right?" he said wryly.

Rinoa was silent. She walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge.

"Yes. I never saw it when it was quite so fresh, though." She winced. "It looks painful."

He shrugged. "Can't really feel anything there right now. Local anesthetic."

She placed her fingers over his hand tentatively, and he looked down distractedly, as if he wasn't sure what she was doing. "I got kind of used to seeing this scar in the memories, so it doesn't feel so strange to see it in the mirror. To be honest, there's this weird feeling of inevitability about it, like 'oh right, my scar.'" He fingered the stitches absently. "No doubt my sister will come up with some theories about that," he muttered.

"So… I guess I look more like your Squall now," he added, and there was a dejected note in his eyes that made Rinoa look away. _You_ are _my Squall,_ she thought.

He shifted, suddenly sheepish. "Except, having an industrial accident with a loose saw blade isn't quite as cool as getting sliced in a swordfight with that douche in the long coat."

Rinoa snorted quietly at his concise description of Seifer, then idly imagined for a brief moment what Seifer might be like in this reality. Was he sitting in a hospital bed with a fresh scar right now, too? She swatted that befuddling train of thought away, and asked "Do they want to keep you in overnight?"

"No. The nurse told me I was free to leave just before you came in."

She stood up and reached for his hand again. "Let's get you back to the inn, then."

He took her hand, a lost look on his face, and followed her out of the clinic.


	8. Chapter VIII

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter VIII**

Squall allowed Rinoa to lead him through the crowded streets of central Timber back towards the new sector of town. She'd attempted to talk to him at first, but his mind was drifting off elsewhere, and Rinoa had quickly accepted his need for silence. That was something that he found disquieting about her; the way that she always seemed to know when he didn't feel like talking. The way that she never prodded him into opening up, but simply waited with a calm smile for him to be ready. He still didn't know how to come to terms with the sheer impossibility of her, a person who claimed to know him completely and - even he had to admit - demonstrated that knowledge fairly effectively, even though the Squall she knew, the Squall she was in love with, was someone else entirely.

…Wasn't he? Squall could no longer be so sure of that assertion. The sudden appearance of his scar was a superficial means of blurring the boundaries between his two 'selves', but it was enough to shake his convictions. Did it mean he was now becoming the man Rinoa and Ellie had described, or worse, that he always had been and not known it? He glanced down at Rinoa, who gave him a worried smile in return. The overwhelming love in her eyes that he'd seen ever since the day at the teahouse no longer unnerved him as it first had. More and more, he was starting to crave it whenever he looked at her. _But it's not for me,_ he thought. _I want it to be for me, Rinoa._

Rinoa's hand was clasped around his arm, and it felt so natural that he didn't really register that she was touching him until they arrived at the inn. He blinked down in surprise, and all he could think about was how snugly she fitted under his shoulder. How soft her skin was.

They walked up the steps in silence and into the warmth of the inn. Squall politely batted away the landlady's exclamations as he went to get the room key at the counter, his mind still sifting through unanswerable questions.

"Poor darling, that looks ever so nasty. You take good care of him, my dear, understood?" she fussed, as a smiling Rinoa nodded enthusiastically.

He couldn't remember walking up the stairs or even changing out of his work clothes; he must have been fully on autopilot until Rinoa emerged from the bathroom in her pajamas and sat on the bed opposite him, a tender expression in her eyes.

"Can I do anything?" she asked.

_What does that mean?_ "…No. I'm fine."

She leaned forward, and he tried not to let her see how much her proximity affected him. "I don't think you are, Squall. You're upset."

"I… The scar doesn't bother me."

"I know. It's everything else, right?"

"I suppose."

She tilted her head, and looked like she was thinking of something to say, some words to comfort him, and Squall wanted to tell her not to try, but then she smiled and said, "Maybe you should just get some rest, for now."

"…Yeah."

She sent him another heartfelt look that made him yearn to be the one she was really thinking of, and quietly switched off the lamp. Squall laid his head on the pillow, his eyes unwilling to close, and listened as Rinoa's breathing gently slowed. The effects of the local anesthetic were beginning to wear off, and a faint echo of pain was jangling at the edge of his nerves. He lifted his hand up to his forehead and ran a finger lightly over the sutures. The nurse had said they were the dissolving kind; he'd never even heard of such a thing before. He wondered, stupidly, if the other Squall had had regular stitches or absorbable ones, then scowled to himself at the ridiculous train of thought. What was the point of comparing himself with someone who either never existed outside of Ellone and Rinoa's minds, or even if he did, was now locked away in an inaccessible reality?

As he lay there, his mind's eye was invaded with images of himself, and of Rinoa, in the memories he had seen with the aid of Ellone's bizarre power. There was one particular memory she had inadvertently shown him of himself and Rinoa cradled in each others' arms, smiling sleepily at each other in a bed at the military facility they had told him was called Garden. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get quite so personal," his sister had said, hurriedly breaking off the connection. But Squall hadn't been able to shake the image of the expression of deep peace on his other self's scarred face, and the sweet bliss on Rinoa's. He now found himself longing to hold her like that. Would she look at him in the same way?

He shifted in bed and watched her for a while in the half-light, her chest rising and falling with each soft breath, until the rhythm started to calm him. She was curled up like a little girl, an illusion only heightened by those stupidly adorable chocobo pajamas she wore. He felt one corner of his mouth twitching up into a smile. Damn, she was cute. Dangerously so; it kept distracting him from the fact that everything she said, everything about her, was impossible. The way he felt when he was with her was similarly inexplicable. The way he felt when she wasn't even there… how he had struggled, and failed, to keep her face out of his mind the entire time he was at work today… Squall frowned and turned away from her, bunching the pillow up under his head. The nagging feeling that he had no control over the situation was one that unnerved him. If Rinoa's effects on his emotions were the remnants of another Squall, in another life, what did that mean about _him?_ Did he even have a choice about whether he loved her or not?

She murmured something in her sleep, and without thinking he turned back to face her. Squall felt his features soften, his unease drift away, as her breathing quietly settled back to normal. _It's not her fault_.

He had started to drift off, finally, when Rinoa's voice jolted him back to consciousness. She was still asleep, whimpering softly - a bad dream, he supposed. He attempted to go back to sleep, but her words gradually became clearer, and he listened.

"No, Squall, you shouldn't have come here. No…"

_She's dreaming about me? Other me?_ He sat up in the bed and said calmly, "Rinoa, it's okay. It's just a dream."

She clawed at her hair, and he could dimly make out a sheen of sweat on her brow. Her voice was more agitated now. "Stay back, Squall, stay _back_!"

He tentatively got off the bed and stood over her, wondering if he should wake her. In his indecision, Rinoa's breathing grew more ragged and she pleaded suddenly, "Don't hurt him! No, _no_!"

Squall reached out an arm to rouse her and almost jumped out of his skin as she let out a long, piteous wail that was the most heart-rending sound he had ever heard. He found himself pulling her close, his hands in her hair, his lips against her ear, whispering over and over that it was a dream, it was all right, she was safe. How long he did that for, he wasn't sure, but eventually her agitation dwindled away to nothing and she felt limp in his arms.

He drew back from her gently to look at her face, and Rinoa stared at him with blank, uncomprehending eyes. As her line of vision wandered over his face, settling on the fresh cut on his forehead, warmth trickled back into her expression. She drew one shaking finger up to Squall's face and trailed it lightly down his cheek in wonder.

"Oh… You're…" Rinoa's face crumpled and she buried her head in his chest, repeating the words 'I'm sorry' again and again.

Squall held her as she shuddered, unsure what she could possibly be so sorry about, but he knew with a sinking feeling that he wasn't the one she was talking to.

He swallowed. "Seeing me like this… with the scar… it must make you miss him more than ever." Rinoa gazed up at him, and her expression was so pained that it almost hurt to look at her. "I wish… I wish there was some way for me to help you get back home to him."

She gave a sob and was silent. "No," she said quietly. "No, Squall, he, you - you died."

Squall blinked. He had no idea how to process the surreal information that another version of himself had died. He was alive right now, wasn't he?

"Oh," he said, blankly. "But…" Then he thought back to their first, disastrous date. "Is that why you kept crying when you first saw me?" he asked. _It explains some of the weirdness about Ellie as well.._.

"That was part of it, but…" Rinoa screwed her eyes shut and seemed to be fighting with herself. Without thinking, he stroked her hair and planted a kiss on her crown.

"Squall. There's more," she said, in barely a whisper.

He waited for her to speak.

"I killed you." She kept her eyes closed tightly, seemingly afraid to look at him.

"Oh," he said again, stupidly. "Er… Why?"

It was a long time before Rinoa spoke. She appeared to be fighting down more judders, desperately trying to calm herself enough to speak. She didn't meet his gaze, but he saw her dark lashes lift a fraction, and he knew her eyes were no longer closed. "The Sorcery was corrupted, it changed me, made me do things I couldn't stop from happening. I could only watch it happen, like I was trapped in my own mind." She paused to take several breaths. "And you weren't the only one I killed. Two of our friends too, and dozens of soldiers sent to contain me. That's why we, Elle and me, what we did… we did it to remove Sorcery from history. I would have gone on to kill more people. And even if they'd managed to kill me, the next Sorceress would have been worse. The power only grows with succession."

"Wow. That sounds… I can't imagine that. That was what your world was like?"

Rinoa met his eyes at last, and she looked so hopeless that his hand moved to cup her cheek of its own accord. "You must have been so afraid," he said gently.

She nodded. "Yes, I was, all the time, but… there were thousands… millions of people who were living in fear of - of me."

He looked down at her, this tiny girl who barely reached his shoulder, with her sweet face, and all he could think was how ridiculous it was that anyone could live in fear of being hurt by her.

A lone tear made its way down Rinoa's cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb. She closed her eyes. "It's so selfish but… I want to ask you to forgive me. Do you think you ever can?"

"There's nothing to forgive, Rin. You never killed me. It never happened in this reality." He wiggled his fingers in her face. "Look, alive and well."

She batted his fingers away and shook her head. "But… it's important to me that _you_ forgive me."

_Which me?_ he wondered. "Then I do. You weren't in control of what happened, right? So it wasn't your fault. I forgive you, Rin, and he would, too."

She held his gaze in the dark for an enduring moment, and Squall thought for a second that she might kiss him, and then it occurred to him that he might kiss _her._ But she smiled, her eyes still sad, and whispered, "Thank you."

"I love you, Squall. I love _you_. The Squall who's holding me right now."

Part of him was aching to say it back, to this strange girl he had known for all of two weeks. But Squall held his silence, and carried on stroking her hair until she seemed to calm down.

Rinoa was murmuring something against his chest, so he pulled back and let her repeat it. "Would you… would it be okay if you stayed in this bed? Just for a little longer?"

A troubled expression crossed her face, and she added, "I'm not trying to…"

He cut her off. "I know. Don't say it. I'll stay."

She snuggled against him as they lay down together in the cramped single bed, and she fell back asleep before he had a chance to wonder if anything more than that would happen between them. So Squall found himself lying awake listening to Rinoa's steady breaths once again, and this time, with her heart beating almost against his, he was quickly lulled into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Squall awoke on their last morning in Timber with a dull throbbing in his forehead and a more troubling mess of confusion in his mind. He looked down at Rinoa, breathing softly against his chest, her inky black hair matted to her forehead with sweat. He was disconcerted by how comforting, how _familiar_ it had felt to sleep with her in his arms. Were all these things, the scar, the Balamb fish, his lion pendant, his undeniable feelings for Rinoa, signs that he really was the man she loved, and had simply forgotten her? What did that mean about the life he remembered living so far?

She shifted, and he watched her open her eyes. "Are you all right?"

He frowned. "I should be asking you that."

"Well. I am, now. Thanks to you. But it looks like you're not."

He sat up in the bed and ran a hand through his messy hair, wondering self-consciously what he looked like. "I'm… beginning to wonder who I am, I guess."

She laid a warm hand on his arm. "You're Squall."

"But which one?" His tone sounded pleading to his own ears, and that bothered him; he shouldn't be begging her to provide answers.

"I don't see it as one or the other. It's all _you_."

Squall searched her face with his eyes. "What do you see?"

"I see you, Squall. And… a second chance. After what I did to you." She looked down and fiddled with her hands. "A second chance for your life, and maybe one day, for us. If… if that's what you want, too. But I can wait a long time for that."

Finding himself unable to answer this yet, Squall tried to communicate his some of his feelings by sweeping her hair aside and kissing her tenderly on the temple. Rinoa closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

"Whatever happens, thank you. Thank you, Squall."

She smiled brightly up at him, and it was like a switch had been flicked; now she was the Rinoa who was determined to keep to her word and stay just-good-friends until _he_ decided otherwise, and Squall wasn't quite ready for the shift in demeanor, the sudden loss of intimacy between them. He gaped slightly as she sprang up from the bed and rummaged in her bag, drawing out a few items of clothing and a hairbrush.

Her hand was on the bathroom door when she turned to face him, suddenly looking hopeful. "If there's still time before the train, would it be okay if we go and say goodbye to Angelo? My dog?"

His voice didn't come out immediately. "Sure."

Rinoa beamed at him. "Thank you! We'll only be able to pat her through the fence. Watts will be at work, so she'll be running around the yard." She disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Squall alone.

* * *

Rinoa's friend lived right on the edge of the town, and as they walked in that direction Squall passed several houses he had worked on during the past year. Timber was expanding rapidly; he would probably be sent here more and more regularly as the pace of construction increased. He could bring Rinoa with him again next time… Squall almost stopped walking when he realized what he was thinking. _Where am I going with this idea? She's not my girlfriend._

"There she is!" Rinoa picked up her pace and bounded over towards a steel fence encircling the yard of a small cottage, right on the edge of the woods. Squall could make out very little other than Rinoa's back and a huge, dark shadow that was moving about between the railings.

As he approached the fence, Squall's eyes widened as he realized that the large shadow was in fact Angelo. Rinoa had said 'dog', hadn't she? This… this was a _wolf_. Surely.

Rinoa was stroking the enormous mutt's head and whispering something, but the animal's attention was no longer focused on her owner. Now that Squall was near enough, Angelo was suddenly straining towards him, bouncing so forcefully that she was practically levitating. He knelt down and tentatively offered his hand through the bars of the fence, and the dog seemed to explode with excitement. She leapt up against the railings and attempted to lick his face, which Squall quickly decided to put a stop to, thrusting his hand towards her nose and giving her what he hoped was a stern look. Angelo happily accepted the compromise and set about licking his hand with wild abandon. It tickled, but Squall didn't particularly mind. He was being truthful when he had told Rinoa that he liked dogs. While he didn't have a great deal of experience of taking care of them, he did feel a vague affinity for the creatures. Still, he couldn't remember a dog ever reacting to his presence quite like this before.

"She remembers you!" Rinoa declared, her eyes dancing with joy.

He shook his head. "That's not possible."

"She _does_! It's like your Balamb fish thing, but more powerful. I guess even Time itself can't rewrite a dog's sense of smell." Rinoa poked her fingers through the railings and scratched the top of Angelo's head. "Right, girl? You'd know Squall anywhere, wouldn't you?"

Squall frowned, even as the dog's slobbery kisses tickled his fingertips.

"Oh come on, you can't deny it! She's as happy to see you as I was."

"Yeah, she's giving me almost as much tongue as you did," he muttered, distracted by the direction of his thoughts.

Rinoa spluttered wordlessly for a moment, then burst out laughing and clapped him on the back in obvious delight. "That was a really good one, Squall. For you." She peered closer at his face. "Are you freaking out?" she asked softly, her eyes wide with concern.

"A little." _A lot. Rinoa…_

Squall reclaimed his hand from Angelo's affections and turned to look at Rinoa. He stared at her for a long moment, wondering what to say, and she gazed back at him with an encouraging smile. "I just… Who the hell am I?" The words tumbled out before he could stop them, and he cringed at how pathetic he sounded.

Rinoa reached for his hand, and didn't seem to notice or care that it was still damp with canine slobber. She squeezed it gently. "You're you. In any life, in any universe, you're you, and that won't ever change. You don't need to overthink it."

_How does she do that? Make it all sound simple? It's not..._

"You need some time to work this all out, right?" Her eyes were filled with sympathy, and he couldn't meet her gaze for much longer, so he cast his own eyes back to Angelo, who was still straining through the fence towards him.

"Mm."

"It's okay. Take as much as you need."

Rinoa knelt down to cuddle her dog. Squall watched distractedly as she kissed the mutt's nose and murmured to her gently.

"You gonna be okay in this yard all day? I'm sorry you're all on your own when Watts isn't around. I'm going to come back for you, girl. I don't know when it's going to be, but I promise I will. I love you so much. I'll see you soon."

Rinoa squeezed her arms around the dog's neck one last time, then stood and nodded. "I'm sorry, baby girl. I've got to go." She turned around to face Squall, and he thought he could see tears starting to form in those big brown eyes.

She blinked and smiled at him. "Half an hour until the train, right? We'd better set off." She pushed past him, picked up her bag and started walking, and he followed in a half-daze, stopping when she did to look back at Angelo. He watched her face as she briefly closed her eyes then turned to walk back through the town. Rinoa's evident pain at leaving her dog tugged at his heart. She was so loving. Every fiber of her. Would it be right or wrong for him to accept that love? Why was he still fighting against it?


	9. Chapter IX

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter IX**

Squall had been almost entirely silent on the train journey back to Deling, spending the majority of it gazing out of the window and fingering the stitches on his scar every now and then. Each time Rinoa wanted to seize his hand and move it away from his brow, worried he would work the sutures loose, but she resisted. His face had settled into the expression he had often worn as Commander when trying to work through the different eventualities a mission might lead to; his mind was now buried somewhere deep in a mental flowchart of possibilities. Rinoa knew that this one of those times when he needed to think and not talk. She leaned her head back against her headrest and instead reflected on everything she had discovered in Timber. The newfound vigor and sense of purpose in the country, and in her friends, had been a joyful revelation. Angelo's presence was a sweeter gift than she could have hoped for. The facts of her own role in this new version of Timber's history were rather more difficult to accept. How was she supposed to wear the badge of another Rinoa's achievements? She quietly watched the scenery flickering past, the rocking motion of the train threatening to lull her to sleep. Forest gave way to wide, open spaces of farmland, which were eventually replaced by the sprawling outer suburbs of Deling City.

They disembarked without speaking, and she laid a hand softly on Squall's arm as they walked down the concrete steps that led out of Deling Station. "Thanks for bringing me with you."

He gave a small start, as if he had forgotten she was there. "Oh. Yeah."

She turned to face him at the bottom of the steps, knowing that their bus stops were in opposite directions. He had a helpless expression on his face, and she fought an overwhelming urge to hug him and tell him everything would be okay, as if he were a little boy.

"Squall. I guess I'll see you. …Right?"

"Yeah."

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, hoping it wasn't too much for him, and tried to look cheerful as she walked off to her bus stop, turning to wave back at Squall. He raised a hand slowly, still lost in his own thoughts.

* * *

Rinoa fought sleepiness as she stayed up waiting for her father to return that night. At some point she must have lost her battle, as she was stirred by the weight of a hand placed gently on her knee.

"Get yourself to bed, Rinoa."

"Sorry." She blearily opened her eyes to see General Caraway standing over her, a faint note of paternal affection warming the lines of his creased face.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were waiting for me."

"I sort of was." She shifted, sitting up straighter in the armchair. "My friends in Timber are doing really well. The whole country is. I wanted to thank you. For everything you did."

He held her eyes for a few moments before replying. "You did all the work, Rinoa."

"But thank you for believing in me."

With a half-smile, he replied simply, "You are my daughter."

Rinoa struggled up out of the chair and tentatively reached her arms around Caraway's sturdy torso, the row of medals on his uniform pressing uncomfortably into her face as she leaned wordlessly into the hug. She felt him patting her on one shoulder in response. She tried to remember how many years it had been since she had embraced her father; ten, at least.

She drew back and stared up at him, and he nodded at her, his smile now reaching his eyes. "I do appreciate the sentiment, however." He turned from her and opened a briefcase that laid on the desk. "I need to make a start on my work, I'm afraid."

Rinoa lingered as Caraway begun sorting through the documents nestled inside the case. Was it worth pushing him? She decided that it was.

"I was wondering if there's any way you might change your mind about Angelo."

"Who?" he said, not looking up.

"My dog."

Caraway placed the paper he was holding down on the desk and sighed. "Rinoa, I've made my position on the matter perfectly clear."

Rinoa dug her heels in. "She's important to me."

"And no doubt she appreciates your visits. I'm happy for you to have a dog. But not under this roof. This isn't an appropriate home for a dog, and it would be unfair on the staff."

She had expected as much, but still felt aggrieved. "I just thought-"

"Not in this house, Rinoa." Her father returned to rifling through his paperwork, and Rinoa accepted defeat.

_Well, I won't be here forever,_ she thought as she left the study. Then it struck her. Why didn't she start looking for an apartment? She had the money. She could live independently somewhere cosy like Squall and Ellone did. She vowed to look through the local rental listings in the morning.

As it turned out, that idea came to very little; in the cold light of day, Rinoa's frustration had dulled, and she conceded that leaving her father's house in a sulk was a road she had already been down years ago, and she knew better than to repeat the past. She was composing a letter to Watts, promising to return to see Angelo in two weeks' time, in her bedroom a couple of days later when Mrs. Diviney knocked on the door to announce a phone call. "A _Mister_ Oakwright this time," the housekeeper informed her with an impeccably arched eyebrow. Rinoa ignored Mrs. Diviney's evident curiosity and carefully closed the door to the lounge before pouncing on the phone.

"Squall?"

She heard him clear his throat slightly. "Sorry to call the house. I got your number from Elle."

"It's okay. Aren't you at work today?"

"I'm on my lunch break."

The receiver went quiet. Long phone silences were a common occurrence with Squall. Rinoa had learned over the years that you just had to ride them out.

When he next spoke, his tone of voice wavered, lacking confidence. "Are you free tonight? Would you be able to come by my apartment for a while?"

"Sure." Rinoa hid her excited grin behind her hand, even though Squall couldn't see her.

"Maybe about eight?"

"Okay."

"Do you remember how to find it?"

"Yes." She had memorized the location of his apartment obsessively.

"Good. Listen, I... I'd better go."

"See you later, then." She heard a muffled sound of agreement, then nothing but a click and the dial tone.

Wanting to see her so soon was a good sign, wasn't it? Or was he going to tell her this was all too heavy for him, and he didn't want to see her anymore? It was certainly plausible. He'd barely talked to her on the journey home, after all.

She set off that evening after dinner with a fluttering in her stomach that would not go away. It was a mild night, perhaps the warmest since spring had arrived in Deling City. She had dressed casually; she was sure that any attempt to glam herself up would make Squall retreat into further awkwardness.

Squall answered the door almost immediately, and his reaction on seeing her did nothing to calm Rinoa's nerves. His face bore an intense look that she knew well. It either meant he needed to talk to her about something very serious, or that he was about to push her against the wall and start pulling her clothes off. The two types of stare gave off such a similar heat that had never been able to distinguish between them with any reliable accuracy.

"Squall, is everything-"

He wrapped his fingers around both of her wrists and pulled her inside the apartment without a word, and locked the door. Squall then pulled her in close and leaned his forehead against hers, wincing slightly as Rinoa's skin brushed against his still-healing scar.

"Turns out that two days without you is my limit now," he murmured, his low voice resonant in his chest. "What have you done to me, Rinoa?"

She drew back to peer up at him, unable to work out if he was accusing her or blaming himself, and Squall answered her unspoken question with a kiss that was every bit as fierce as the first one she had given him in this very apartment two weeks ago. Relief and excitement poured through her at the sublime taste of his tongue. _It_ was _the push-me-against-the-wall stare!_ Rinoa thanked the gods profusely as she lost herself in his arms.

He broke off abruptly and caught his breath. "In case it's not clear, I'm okay with not waiting anymore."

"That's... good to know."

Squall resumed kissing her hungrily, and sure enough, Rinoa felt a lurch as the wall of the hallway made sudden contact with her back. Squall lifted his head to grin down at her apologetically, then pulled away and led her by the hand to his bedroom, shutting the door with a swift kick.

* * *

The clock on Squall's bedside table ticked away quietly as Rinoa and Squall lay flat on their backs, arms entwined, faces flushed, gazing wordlessly at the ceiling.

Rinoa let out a long breath she didn't know she'd been holding, in a deep sigh of satisfaction, as Squall made a noise that sounded like "Hnnnnghhhh." She glanced over at him, eyes laughing.

He looked back at her contritely. "That was meant to be a 'wow'. It didn't come out right."

"Wow is good, right?"

" _Good…_ " he stuttered. "I don't think _good_ covers it. You… you know _everything_ that makes me tick."

Rinoa smiled conceitedly. She had wondered if Squall's sensitive spots would be in the same places. It seemed that they were. "Well, we definitely used to practice a lot," she said teasingly.

Squall frowned a little. "I just… I can't see how it can have been as enjoyable for you as it was for me. You already know exactly what I like, but I didn't have a clue what _you_ like."

"Believe me, you did. You may not consciously remember, but your hands do." _And your tongue,_ she thought smugly, her whole body still tingling in the aftermath.

"Really?" he said, a hopeful smile on his face. _So damn cute, Leonhart._ "Really," she assured him.

He propped himself up on one forearm and looked at her with a mix of curiosity and shyness. "Was there anything that was different?"

"I don't know. It was fresh, somehow, but it was still _you_. You were more …connected than you were when we were first together. Before, it took a really long time before you made eye contact when we… But this time, the way you looked at me when you… when we both…"

"At the key moment?" he volunteered with a smirk, and Rinoa nodded with a small giggle. "The way you looked at me then was just the same as it was before… like you were really in love with me." She cast her gaze down, realizing she'd said more than she intended.

"I thought you'd already noticed that by now," he said softly, and buried his face in her neck.

She let his words sink in for a moment, treasuring them, as she stroked his hair. "What changed your mind?"

"I figured out that all the time I was spending worrying about which version of me I am, was time I could be spending with you and… that maybe it just doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?"

"The question of whether he and I are the same person or not. I made an executive decision not to care anymore."

"Good decision," she said, approvingly.

Squall lifted his head to look at her. "Once I realized that the answer wouldn't change the way I already feel about you… things became unexpectedly simple."

_Simple..._ "Maybe things _can_ be simple for us, this time around. I hope so. I know we haven't started off with simple, but..." She trailed off. _Maybe, just maybe, we can get there._

He gave a wry smile. "That's an understatement."

"I guess."

Rinoa moved her hand from Squall's hair to his shoulder, and watched with wonder the path her fingertips took as they traveled lightly across his torso.

"Sorry I'm not as built up as you remember me."

She looked up at him questioningly. He shrugged, seeming to be a little embarrassed. "In your memories I seemed to be packing some serious muscle."

"This is your natural build, though. It's how you should be. You only looked like that because you'd been made to train every day since you were a child. Anyway, I wasn't thinking that. You look great as you are." She placed a kiss on his shoulder. "No, it was because you had so many different scars before, and it's... different seeing you without them."

"Did I? Poor guy really got carved up."

She trailed a finger across a now-invisible line that had once bisected his abdomen. "This was where a Ruby Dragon got you, and there was a bullet scar here… and I'm freaking you out now, so I'll shut up."

Squall was staring up at the ceiling, nonplussed, and she attempted to snuggle into his side in a reassuring way.

"A Ruby Dragon?" he whispered.

"Don't think about it. I shouldn't even have mentioned it."

He tilted his face to look at her, his eyes serious. "Rinoa. Can you really go from that to a man who installs kitchen cabinets for a living?"

She kissed the tip of his nose. "It's a privilege to."

He held her gaze for a few moments until he seemed to accept her words, and allowed her to curl up against him.

"You'll stay the night, right?" He threaded his fingers through hers.

"I'd like that."

* * *

Squall had risen at six to prepare for work, and Rinoa dozed until the aroma of coffee and toast lured her to his kitchen. They breakfasted together in a warm silence, and the lingering shyness in Squall's eyes brought Rinoa back to that giddy feeling she had known when their relationship had first begun as teenagers. She tried to remind herself that for him, this _was_ their beginning now, and let herself feel it all again: the rush of excitement, nervousness and awkwardness of a new love. She made sure that she was ready to leave together with him at seven, and smiled as he gave her a hesitant kiss in the hallway before opening the front door.

"Can I call you tonight?" she asked.

"Sure."

It was only after Rinoa boarded her bus, packed full of commuters heading to the central district, that it occurred to her that Mrs. Diviney would already be up and making breakfast, would almost certainly have noticed her absence, and was likely to link it to the event of a male caller during the previous lunchtime. She bit her lip. The prospect of being berated by the housekeeper was not quite enough to dampen her current elation, but there was always the possibility of more serious repercussions if the matter reached the ears of her father.

She quietly unlocked the side entrance to the mansion - thinking the front gate to be too conspicuous at this hour - and almost crashed headfirst into General Caraway, who looked blankly down at her as he buttoned up his coat.

Rinoa gaped up at him, then quickly shifted her eyes to the polished floorboards under her father's feet.

"I didn't think you'd still be home."

"Evidently."

She felt a flush creeping up her cheeks, and wondered whether offering an explanation would only make things worse.

She heard Caraway exhale, in a small sigh. "Rinoa, why are you afraid to tell me you have a boyfriend? I'm not oblivious."

"I… thought you'd be angry."

"You're twenty. I can't pretend you're a little girl forever, as much as I'd like to."

She risked a glance up at him. "…You're not angry?"

"I don't entirely like the idea of my daughter staying out all night with a young man, no, but I should imagine that not many fathers do. But you have to make your own choices in life. With everything that happened with Timber's independence, you showed me that you were ready to do so."

Rinoa found herself lost for words. Caraway's face was tired, a little exasperated perhaps, but displayed no trace of real anger.

"Is he an honest man?"

"Yes. He is."

"Your age? Unmarried?" he prodded.

"Yes! He's twenty, too. I guess I was afraid to tell you because… well… he's just a carpenter." She hated herself as soon as she said it. _I'm sorry, Squall._

Caraway studied her for a long moment. "And?"

"I thought…"

"You thought I'd want to marry you off to an army officer?"

Rinoa scuffed her toe into the antique rug, embarrassed. She _had_ vaguely thought that.

"Carpentry's a good trade. A useful one. I've never thought there's any shame in manual work, Rinoa. And I've known plenty of honorable tradesmen, just as I've known as many treacherous snakes in the military."

Her father sighed again, this time heavily, making the weariness in his face seem more pronounced. "I wish you could trust me more," he said quietly.

Rinoa closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Dad." How many years had it been since she'd called him that? It flooded her with a warm relief to say the word after so long.

"It's your life. Just make sure you let Mrs. Diviney know when you're going to be out all night."

She nodded, and watched him as he gathered his belongings and left the house, and then Rinoa made her way to the kitchen to give her apologies to the housekeeper.

* * *

In a quiet cafe in central Deling on a rainy afternoon, Rinoa carefully carried a steaming mug of coffee in each hand over to the small table where Ellone was saving her a seat.

"Thanks, Rin. You know, I saw Squall the day after you got back." She drew one finger across her forehead in a diagonal line. "The scar, huh?"

"Yeah. It shook him up quite a bit when it happened."

"Our mom is _so_ mad about it. She thinks he should sue for compensation. Which Squall would never ever consider doing." Ellone smiled fondly.

"Have you been talking to her?"

"I went back to visit. Stayed overnight again. I figured I had to just take the plunge, you know?"

Rinoa sipped on her coffee experimentally, then decided it was still too hot. "How was it?"

"Good, actually. Easier than I expected. They're really..." A content expression drifted across Ellone's face, and she shrugged. "They're my family. It just all kind of made sense, once I was there." She started to drink her own coffee, and Rinoa marveled at her superior heat-tolerance. "I got to know Alex a bit more this time. It's the strangest thing, Rin. He looks like me, he talks like me... I still can't quite believe that he's real. I feel like we magicked him up out thin air." Seeing Rinoa wince slightly, she added ruefully, "Tactless use of the 'm' word there. Sorry."

"It's okay. Hopefully one day I'll stop being sensitive about it." As Rinoa spoke, a realization struck: in this new life, a time might eventually come when Sorcery would not cross her thoughts for a whole day, perhaps a whole week.

Ellone drained her cup and set it down. "How about you? Did your trip go well?"

"It did. I found out what happened when I went to Timber. I mean, the other Rinoa." She stumbled over a brief explanation of her apparent role in the new nation's independence, and watched as Ellone's eyes widened and her face set in an expression of approval.

"Wow. Sounds like you did a great job."

"I can't take the credit for it though, can I? It wasn't me." Rinoa fiddled with her coffee mug, turning it round in her hands. "It's taken me back to square one, in a way. If the other me achieved something so huge, how can I possibly follow it up? I still don't really know what to do with myself. I mean, in terms of making a contribution to society."

Ellone tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Not much point in asking a mere waitress about things like that, Rin," she said in a low tone.

Rinoa felt abashed. "Sorry… that was a self-centered question."

"Well, who says you have to do something outstanding anyway? I think creating a new reality is just about enough for one lifetime. It definitely is for me."

"I... You're right, I suppose." She frowned.

Ellone shrugged and leaned forward. "Anyway. Tell me about you and Squall. He was really evasive when I asked about you. So I figured that something happened out there. Am I right?"

"Not while we were in Timber, but... afterwards."

"You're officially together?"

"I think so."

Ellone leaned back and gazed at her frankly. "I'm glad for you. Really."

Rinoa smiled. "Thanks." She finally made a start on her coffee, and watched as Ellone's face lit up.

"Guess what! While you were in Timber, Selphie came into my restaurant!"

Rinoa sat bolt upright, suddenly remembering. "Oh! Elle, I met Irvine!" At Ellone's shocked open mouth, she giggled and said, "Okay, you first."

"Well, Selphie was with two other girls, they came in for lunch. I took their order, but one of the girls ordered for the whole table, so I didn't get to talk to Selphie directly. I kind of made eye contact while I was hovering there, though."

"How did she look?"

"The same as ever. Happy. Hyper. Big hair. I just wanted to go over and hug her. I managed to eavesdrop a little on their conversation, and it sounded like they were on a work trip. She's got a thicker Trabian accent than before, so I'm guessing that's where she lives. They were talking about scouting for venues and booking acts." Ellone's brow furrowed. "I think she works in event planning, maybe?"

"Ohhh." Rinoa beamed. "That would be so perfect for her. That's the most Selphie job ever." While Selphie had been a very competent SeeD, Rinoa had never seen her as enthusiastic about mercenary work as she had been about the Garden Festival.

Without looking up from her coffee mug, Ellone commented, "I always thought that would be 'bomb disposal expert'." She glanced up with a sly smile as Rinoa's coffee threatened to come shooting out of her nose.

"That's the most terrifying thing you've ever said, Elle."

Ellone smirked. "It was worth it to see your face."

Far too pleased to see Ellone back to her old self to feel remotely indignant, Rinoa brushed off the teasing and started to describe her encounter with Irvine in Timber.

"He kind of tried to pick me up, but he had to get out of there before the heat from Squall's eyes singed a hole in his ponytail."

"Ha. Poor Irvy. Did you find out anything about him?"

"Not much. Just that he used to be in the G-Army but has left it now, and he doesn't live in Timber." Rinoa smiled as she pictured Irvine with his arm round Selphie, whispering flirtatious nonsense in the girl's ear. "I wish there was a way we could get him and Selphie together," she said wistfully.

Ellone grinned. "Yeah. Maybe they'll find each other, like you and Squall did."

"Well, that was all thanks to you. I owe you everything, Elle."

She shook her head. "No, you don't." Then Ellone looked at Rinoa hesitantly, her smile fading away. "But there is... um, there is a favor I want to ask of you."

"Tell me." Within reason, she would do anything for Ellone; she knew that for sure.

"It's about Uncle Laguna. I've got no hope of tracing him on my own, I've realized that. But I thought maybe you could ask your father."

"My father?"

"There has to be G-Army records about former soldiers. My mom said he was recalled to active service when Raine was pregnant, so..." Ellone looked apologetic. "I know things are difficult with you and your dad, so I hate to ask, but-"

Rinoa reached across the table to clutch Ellone's hand. "Of course I'll ask him. I'm just sorry it didn't occur to me before now. I'll talk to him tonight."

* * *

When Rinoa knocked on the door of the study that evening, Caraway was leaning against his desk, polishing the reading glasses he rarely wore.

"There's something I'd like to ask you, Dad."

"Go ahead."

"Is it possible to trace a G-Army soldier from twenty years ago? Are the records of troop movements from back during the war still kept somewhere?"

He set his glasses down and eyed her shrewdly. "What's this about?"

"Squall - my boyfriend's - father. He was in the G-Army, but he disappeared before Squall was born."

Caraway's brow creased slightly. "Hmm. I might be rather more inclined to help if your boyfriend were to ask me himself."

Rinoa paused. _This isn't off to a good start._ "No, it's not like that. He has no idea I'm asking you. He doesn't really want to know. It's Ellone, his older sister who asked me to find him. She's the one that remembers him. Squall thinks his father just left, but Ellone's sure that he was a good person."

"I may be able to, but I can't make any promises." Caraway walked round to the front of the desk and picked up a pen. "What was the solider's name and rank?"

"I'm not sure about his rank, but his name was Laguna Loire."

Rinoa watched as the blood drained from her father's face and he slowly put the pen down.

"Loire…"

Caraway turned away from the desk to stare out of the window, his expression hidden from his daughter.

"Did you know him?" she asked, tentatively.

"Not really. I was aware of him during basic training, but we never spoke. He didn't impress me much. Unruly hair, sloppy salute. Poorly spoken. No… it was your mother who…"

Caraway bowed his head, and was silent. Rinoa thought that the conversation would go no further, when he suddenly turned back round and walked over to sit in an armchair, gesturing to her to do the same. Rinoa quietly sat facing her father, and waited for him to talk.

"Your mother probably would have told you this if you'd been older when she died. I wasn't the man she wanted to marry. Loire was."

_So he'd known_ , thought Rinoa. There was a defeated sadness on her father's face that she had not seen since the years immediately after Julia's death. "Did she tell you that?"

"She was heartbroken over him when I met her. Loire had gone missing in action. I tried to trace him for her at the time, but there were no leads. She eventually accepted it, and over time, she came to accept me, too."

"But... he was recalled to the army after a year, wasn't he? You must have found out about him by then."

Caraway cast his eyes downward, and Rinoa thought he actually looked ashamed, an emotion she had never witnessed in her father before. "I did. He was identified in Winhill and called back to service. I never told your mother." He sighed. "We were married by that time, and Loire reported that he had married, too. What would be the point of stirring up Julia's pain again?"

"So Mom always thought he had died?"

"I'm not proud of it, Rinoa. I was a young man, desperately in love with your mother. I was afraid, even then, that she would want to leave me to find Loire if she knew."

"You should have trusted her."

"I know." Caraway looked at her now, pain laid bare in his dark eyes. "I loved her. I was happy to be her second best."

Rinoa leaned forwards to take her father's hands in hers. "I don't believe that. She was your wife. She barely knew Laguna. I'm sure that you were the love of Mom's life."

"I'll never know the answer to that." He closed his eyes, and a single tear trickled down his face. When he opened his eyes, he cupped his broad hands around Rinoa's cheeks. "You look so much like her now. There were times when I could hardly bear to look at you. Unforgivable, I know. One of the many things I hate myself for."

Rinoa clasped his hands, as she shed her own quiet tears. How was it that she had never truly seen what a deeply unhappy man her father was?

She rose from her chair and buried her face in his chest. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I shouldn't have asked you this."

"You didn't know." Caraway pulled away from her and gave a crooked smile. "There's an elegant symmetry to it, in a way. That you and Loire's son would find each other. Your mother would probably have been delighted." He studied her face closely. "What's he like?"

"Squall? He's… I don't think he's much like Laguna. He's serious, and he thinks a lot, and he's so careful in his work… I guess you won't want to meet him now, though."

"Do you love him?" Caraway's eyes seemed to burn into hers.

"Yes. Very much."

He nodded, his face solemn. "Then I'll meet him. When the two of you decide that's what you want."

"Thank you, Dad." She released his hands and settled back into her chair. "I know this has been hard for you to talk about. I won't ask you to investigate what happened to Laguna after he was recalled."

Caraway waved her statement away with his hand. "I don't need to. I know what happened to him. He defected to Esthar."

"Defected?"

"He wasn't the only one. There were plenty of conscripts that weren't happy with our orders at the time, and Esthar took advantage of that. You can see why they would be tempted, with all the technology and wealth that Esthar had to offer. Loire was on the Esthar continent with around twenty other troops when they all defected together. It caused a lot of trouble at the time. One of a chain of events that eventually brought the war to a close, in fact, so I suppose I should be grateful for his treachery."

She leaned back against the cushions, reeling at the information. _Defected._ "Do you think he's still in Esthar?"

"If he's still alive, then I imagine so. He would have been arrested the moment he ever set foot on Galbadian territory again. None of the wartime defectors have ever returned."

* * *

Rinoa shared what she had learned with Ellone and Squall, when the three met in the park the next sunny lunchtime. Ellone sat on the bench next to Rinoa, gripping her hand almost painfully hard, while Squall paced back and forth in front of them, his face fixed in a frown.

"So that proves he's in Esthar. I felt like he would be, but now I know... I've got to find a way to get there." Ellone looked up at her brother, her eyes pleading. "Will you be okay with that, Squall?"

"You can go looking for him if you want, but I don't want to be a part of it yet."

Ellone's lips curved upwards. "You said _yet_."

Squall ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah. I don't really know how I feel about this."

"Well, you'll have plenty time to work it out, because it'll take me months to save up enough for the train and a hotel there." Ellone scowled slightly and turned away from Rinoa and Squall.

Rinoa gave a start; she hadn't considered Ellone's financial situation. "Oh come on Elle, you can use my money. Go next week."

Ellone twisted around and gaped at her. "I can't do that. It would cost thousands."

"I've got more than I'll ever need. I didn't even earn it. Mom did. And she'd want to know what happened to Laguna, too." Rinoa laid a hand on Ellone's arm. "I won't let you argue about this. Just take it. As much as you need."

"Rin-"

"I said I won't let you argue."

Ellone leaned forward and drew Rinoa into a tight hug. "Thank you. I won't waste it."

When she drew back, her eyes were damp, and she wiped them and stood up. "I'd better head off. Rin... thanks."

After Ellone left, Squall took her seat on the bench next to Rinoa, and pulled one arm around her shoulders.

"Are you mad? That I asked my father about Laguna?"

"No. It means a lot to Ellie." He kissed her forehead lightly. "So I guess you told your dad about me."

"Yeah. Well, he kind of worked it out after I came home in the morning."

Squall gave her a sidelong glance. "Was he angry?"

"He was surprisingly cool about everything. I think I've been doing him a disservice. He isn't the man I thought." She considered her words. "Maybe he never was."

Squall was silent for a moment, then said, "I told my mom, too."

"Oh?"

"She called yesterday and asked me again if I'd met 'that nice Rinoa girl' yet. I cracked under pressure and said we'd been on a few dates. She was _really_ happy to hear that."

"What did she say?"

Squall's expression darkened. "I'm not telling you that. She was getting way ahead of herself." He suddenly buried his head in hands and peeked out at her in what looked like dire embarrassment. Through gritted teeth, he added, "Although I should probably tell you that she wants to start knitting your Midwinter sweater, and I'm supposed to find out what color you'd like."

"Huh?"

"It's this Oakwright tradition. We have these highly embarrassing woolly sweaters, which we have to wear all though Midwinter day on pain of death while we pitch in and help at the bar. Mine is red with cactuars on. Ellie's is green with chocobos. You get the general idea."

"Oh my god, that is incredibly adorable. Can I have light blue?"

"Hmm, Alex is dark blue, but I guess if it's different enough…" He shook his head. "I can't believe I'm even asking you this."

Rinoa snaked her arms around his neck. "Ooh, can I have cactuars on too? So we match?"

Squall pushed her hands away and fixed her with a stern expression. "Stop looking so excited. You're not allowed to enjoy this. It's the most humiliating event of the year. I forbid you to be cheerful about it."

"Meanie," she huffed. "Midwinter, though? I mean, it's still spring."

"Like I said, she's getting ahead of herself." He turned to face her, suddenly serious. "Don't misunderstand, I mean… I fully intend for us to still be together by Midwinter. I wouldn't be with you otherwise."

She patted his hand. "I know. I do, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And so Squinoa are very much back on. I hope you will excuse the extreme fluffiness contained in this chapter. Including actual, literal fluffiness with the whole woolly sweater bit. Yeah, this fic has gone from death, angst and supernatural destruction to matching sweaters in the space of nine chapters... but you guys are cool with that, right? ...Right? (runs away in embarrassment)
> 
> p.s. The Midwinter sweater thing was inspired by an Xmas-themed fanart of the FFVIII gang by the divine Skribleskrable on Tumblr; if you have never seen her wonderful FFVIII art then I urge you to go and look! I deleted that section a couple of times as it really is shamelessly indulgent... but the image of a moody Squall clad in a catuar sweater serving boisterous Winhill pub patrons while Ellone cackles at him from behind the bar amused me too much to let go.


	10. Chapter X

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter X**

On the fourth morning of her stay in Esthar, Ellone was sitting at an immaculately white table in a quiet cafe, her plate now empty except for a few crumbs, watching the waitress being quietly admonished by the manager. She wasn't sure what the girl was supposed to have done wrong, but it didn't matter; the dynamic reminded her so much of her own workplace that she found herself automatically on the waitress' side. The manager turned his back and Ellone quickly caught the girl's eye, and gave her a sympathetic smile. She looked back, slightly startled, then glanced away in embarrassment. _Poor kid,_ Ellone thought, resolving to leave her a sizable tip, even though the custom of tipping had largely been done away with in Esthar. _I know how you feel._

Not that she had a job to return to, in all likelihood. When Ellone had announced her intention of taking two weeks' leave for personal reasons, her own manager had sucked his teeth and warned her, "I can't guarantee you any shifts when you return, then."

"Fine," she'd smiled sweetly, and left it at that. Ellone had no intention of begging for her job back. She had reasoned that she'd easily find something else. Now, on the other side of the world, her train journey and accommodation facilitated with Rinoa's credit card, she was not so sure. Deling City seemed very, very far away.

She finished the final, tepid drops of tea remaining in her cup and sighed softly. Esthar was home, and yet not home at all. She had spent the last three years living in a suite in the Presidential Palace; now, she was staying in a modest guesthouse filled mostly with seasonal workers from Fisherman's Horizon. Rinoa had urged her to spend the duration of her stay 'in comfort', but Ellone steadfastly refused to use a single gil more of Julia Heartilly's royalties than strictly necessary. She was here to trace Laguna, not on vacation.

Four days in and she had made no progress at all, true; but there was still time, she told herself firmly.

She had a sense of having fallen into a strange limbo since arriving. It took her a while to realize that she was experiencing a kind of grief for her old life. Seeing the new version of Esthar had forced Ellone to confront the truth that she already knew: she would never return to the people and places she had known and loved. They were gone. Altered, unfamiliar equivalents were not the same. As precious as her evolving discovery of the Oakwright family and her place in it was proving to be, there remained a heavy, tugging loss that nagged at the edges of her mind and left her exhausted. The only way she knew how to cope with it was by sinking back into the comfort of her memories.

After her initial sessions of showing Squall his parallel life, Ellone had resolved not to use her ability again in this new reality. It didn't seem right, somehow, in a place where Sorcery did not exist, for her to be the only human to wield such power. And yet, with increasing feelings of guilt, she had returned to using it in the last few days. There were parts of her former life that she missed fiercely, and the knowledge that they were at her command to view any time she pleased had, ultimately, proved too tempting. She found herself revisiting her everyday life at the Presidential Palace with Laguna, Kiros and Ward; her long, slow days at sea on the White SeeD ship; and in particular, one very old, cherished memory of Edea rocking her to sleep as a young girl that Ellone doubted she would ever be able to let go of completely.

Ellone left a few Bank of Esthar gil notes weighted down by the plate and slipped out of the cafe, hoping that the waitress would find the tip before the manager did. The air in Esthar was crisp and dry; it was still spring, and the heat would not set in until near midday. She looked up at the now-unfamiliar skyline.

The most immediately noticeable difference on her arrival to the city was that the elevated roadways were gone. Esthar was still gleaming, modern, and impressive, but without the translucent strips of neon blue criss-crossing overhead, it was almost - _almost -_ a normal city. She was reminded of something Edea had often said during history lessons on board the White SeeD ship, Ellone's only form of education. _Warfare is the driver of technological advance. The greater the conflict, the greater the progress. But at what price?_ Those words resonated with Ellone now. Her world, with the existence of Sorcery, Adel, and far bloodier wars, had created an Esthar that was decades ahead of any other rival nation; here, it was much closer to being on an equal footing with Galbadia.

She carried on walking down the pristine street - how odd it still felt, to be traveling at ground level in Central Esthar - towards the Northside Library, where she had spent most of her waking hours in the last three days.

With no leads whatsoever, her only hunch was that Laguna would have attempted to pursue his former dream of becoming a travel journalist after settling in Esthar. She had started her investigations by searching through back issues of travel magazines, right up to twenty years ago when Laguna had first arrived. Esthar's inclination for technological solutions to analog problems made this a much easier task than it would have been in Galbadia: the vast majority of what she was looking for was available for browsing on digital reading panels in the library. She only had to venture to the actual shelves for the much older issues, those from more than fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, neither approach had yielded any results so far. Today was no better. She chewed on her lip and leaned back in her seat. There were no guarantees that he was a journalist, after all, but…

Ellone switched off the reading panel, stood and walked to one of the communal tables, where an earlier visitor had left a folded newspaper behind. She leafed through it absently. The _Esthar Guardian._ Ellone recognized the publication from her own version of Esthar. One of the few newspapers to doggedly maintain a paper copy while the majority of the country's journalism switched to digital format-only, it was known for its socially-minded leanings and strong opinions, despite a relatively low circulation. In her reality, it had been the most vociferous critic of the Loire government's policies. Laguna had welcomed that: he had always said that it was the free press that reminded him that he was the servant of the people, not the other way around.

She stopped mid-turn as tiny black-and-white profile photo leapt out at her from underneath a reporter's byline. There was no mistaking those eyes. His face was thinner, his gaze was serious, but there was no doubt who he was.

_Is the Medi-tech Program Excluding Esthar's Poorest Communities?_

_Laguna Loire, Senior Reporter_

_We pride ourselves on the fact that our nation offers the most advanced healthcare on the planet, free of cost to all our citizens. So why is there a life expectancy gap of seven years between the wealthiest suburbs and the communities of Central Esthar? Laguna Loire has spent six months interviewing healthcare providers and community leaders to produce this in-depth examination of the causes of the Medi-tech program's failure to fully benefit all members of our society._

Ellone let out a long, slow breath, her fingers tracing the miniature photograph. _Of course._ Her mistake had been focusing on travel magazines. She should have known that Laguna would have moved on to something more substantial. Despite all his protestations that he only became President through a series of coincidences, he truly did have an innate urge to address unjust treatment wherever he saw it. It was who he was, in this world as well as the last one.

She read through the piece hungrily. It was thorough, considered, and maintained a subtle balance between presenting hard data and elucidating trends that posed difficult questions for the current Esthar administration. She admired how Laguna never forced his own opinion into the piece, but nevertheless used the information he had gathered to paint a picture that left the reader in no doubt of the newspaper's stance. She also had to smile at his command of vocabulary; as ever, he was vastly more eloquent with the written word than he ever was in person.

Ellone flicked back to the front cover of the _Guardian_ and noted the address of its headquarters, provided in small print at the top-right corner of the page. She was fairly sure that it was in the same location as in her own Esthar, although she'd never had any cause to visit. Until now.

She eschewed taking a taxi there, partly out of determination not to use Rinoa's inheritance frivolously, and partly to spend the long walk rehearsing what she would say to Laguna if - no, _when,_ she would make sure of that - she managed to meet him.

The offices of the _Esthar Guardian_ were small, but impressive. The front lobby was filled with huge blown-up copies of famous headlines and front-page photos - at least, she assumed they were famous, none were familiar to her - and several conceptual iron sculptures that made very little sense to Ellone. She walked up to the main reception desk, staffed by a sensible-looking woman with short hair and glasses, who was currently tapping something into a computer keyboard.

"Is it possible to meet with Laguna Loire, please?"

"Welcome to the _Esthar Guardian_ ," she responded warmly. "Is he expecting you?"

"No." _Something of an understatement,_ she commented silently.

"Take a seat, please." The receptionist met Ellone's eyes with an earnest smile. "Don't worry. I won't ask for your name. The anonymity of our sources is very important to us. Would you like to say what it's in connection to?"

Ellone mulled the question over. "It's personal," she concluded. "I can wait until his lunch break."

The receptionist looked slightly taken aback, but maintained her friendly air. "I'm not actually sure Laguna ever takes lunch breaks. I'll send a message up to him." She tapped a few keys and asked Ellone to wait.

It was a few minutes before she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs: someone with long legs, taking the steps two or three at a time, and she was already sure it was him before he emerged from the stairwell.

Ellone stood and walked towards him. "Laguna?" she said, hesitantly.

He peered down at her, and he looked just as he had before: youthful, despite the streaks of gray in his long hair, barely contained in a messy ponytail, casual attire, an earnest, open gaze. But there was nothing other than a friendly curiosity in his expression. He didn't recognize her.

She couldn't rush into his arms or call him 'Uncle'; she'd never lived with Raine in this world. At the very best, she was the kid of his next-door neighbors for a short period twenty years ago. Would he even remember her at all?

"I'm Ellone. From Winhill. I lived next to the pub…"

He blinked, incredulous. "Little Ellone Oakwright? All grown up?"

She nodded.

"Wow." He ran his fingers through the loose strands at the front of his hair. "Hey, come with me. We'll use one of the interview rooms."

He pointed at the stairwell, and she followed him up to the second floor and along an empty corridor. "I thought you'd have your own office by now," she said teasingly, and then, seeing the quizzical look on his face, belatedly remembered that they were no longer in a mutually teasing relationship.

"Nah. We have something called 'hot-desking' here. I sit in a different seat every day. Think it's supposed to remind us how equal we all are." Laguna swiped an access card through a scanner mounted on the wall and held the door open for her. "Funnily enough," he added in a low tone, "the editor-in-chief has a very nice office, all to himself. I've learned over the years that equality only goes so far in Esthar."

"I don't think that's unique to Esthar."

"Hm. Human nature, perhaps." He closed the door behind himself. "Have a seat."

Laguna sat down at the desk on the opposite side to her, and spent a long moment taking in her appearance. "You're, what, eighteen now?"

Ellone spluttered slightly. "Twenty-four," she corrected.

Laguna's eyebrows shot up in astonishment, then his face crinkled up into a rueful grin. "Man, that makes me feel old," he sighed. "You only came up to my knee back then."

Ellone smiled. "Well, I'm still kinda short."

Laguna seemed to attempt to return her smile, but bafflement soon won over. "So what are you doing here in Esthar?"

"Looking for you."

He clearly hadn't been expecting that answer. "You came all the way to Esthar just to see me? How did you even know where to find me?"

"My friend's father is in the military, and he said you'd defected. So I figured you'd still be here. And I remembered how you always wanted to be a journalist…"

"You remembered that? From when you were four?" Laguna exhaled, impressed. "Sounds like you'd make a pretty good journalist yourself." He looked at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to reveal the purpose of her visit.

Ellone leaned back in the chair and chewed her lip, wondering how best to break the news of Squall's existence to Laguna. She'd done the exact same thing three years ago; how had she worded it then? She tried to remember how the conversation had gone. She was almost certain that he'd react in the same way: with tears, anger, and wonder.

"How did you end up defecting?" she asked curiously.

He met her frank gaze, not quite sure of her motives, and Ellone tried to smile reassuringly. "Is that too personal a question?"

"Not really." He scratched his ear. "Well... I was with the thirtieth regiment in Trabia, and we were ordered to launch an offensive into Esthar from the north. We were underpowered, underskilled... I still don't know what the higher-ups were thinking. We'd barely crossed the border when we were captured by the Esthari army. They treated us well, though. The offer to defect came after a few days. All of us were low-ranking grunts, the G-Army didn't care whether we lived or died."

"So you took the opportunity?"

He shook his head. "Some of the guys wanted to defect straight away. I knew there was no way in hell that I would; I had a wife to get back to. I was one of about ten of us who said to the Esthari that we'd remain prisoners of war. After a while - wasn't so long, a week maybe - we were given access to phones and told we could call our loved ones, let 'em know we were alive." Laguna's face darkened. "I couldn't get through to the landline number for the pub, so I called the Mayor's house. Mayor Jonas, is he still around?"

"He died a while ago. It's Mayor Elaine now."

Laguna gave a half-nod. "Jonas... he told me.. you know. About Raine. That she was gone. As soon as I heard that, I knew there was nothing for me in Galbadia anymore. I took the offer. Never looked back."

Ellone surveyed his face. This was her cue, she knew it, but... _If I wait until he's ready, I'll never tell him,_ she reminded herself. She took a steadying breath.

"Did Mayor Jonas tell you how Raine died?"

Laguna looked away. "Pneumonia, he said. If only.. If only I'd been at her side, y'know?"

"Laguna…" Ellone reached across and took his hand, and he glanced at her in surprise.

"There's no gentle way to tell you this, so here goes. The mayor lied. Raine died in childbirth. You have a son, who is twenty and living in Deling City. He ended up becoming my brother. My parents adopted him after Raine died."

She could hardly bear to look at his face, feeling that she was intruding on the complex mix of emotions that flitted across it, and instead fumbled inside her purse to locate the photo of Squall she had brought in preparation. It was a good one: he was handsome, relaxed, smiling.

"Here." She shoved it into his hands and added, "You can keep it."

Laguna stared at the photo, glassy-eyed for a long time before he spoke. "He's… he's her double."

"Yeah. I always thought so."

"My son?" he asked, his voice a shellshocked whisper.

She nodded.

"What's his name?"

"Squall. Squall Leonhart Oakwright."

He set the photo down on the desk. "I can't… I can't believe it." Laguna's face quickly crumpled into anger, as she knew it would. "Why did Jonas lie to me? How could he do that?"

"It wasn't right, what he did. It's indefensible. I can take a guess at why, though. The people in Winhill thought Squall would be safer and better off growing up in a family there. They felt like he was theirs, as Raine's son. They didn't want you to come back from the war and take him away."

"But he was mine too!" Laguna's voice reverberated around the tiny room. "I had a right to _know_!"

"Of course you did. I'm so sorry. I really am, Laguna."

He started to calm down, and she could see that his mind was quickly finding new questions to ask. "Why are you the one who's come here to find me, and not him?"

Ellone hesitated, unsure how to explain Squall's ambivalence in a tactful way.

Laguna frowned. "Does he even know about me?"

"He knows that you might still be alive. That's all. Squall's… not really ready to come and find you. But I was. I remembered you, and how important you were to me. I knew you were a good person. That you deserve to know about him."

He stared at her, his mouth slightly open. "I don't... I don't know what to say, Ellone."

His eyes returned to the photo. "Damn, he's a good-looking kid."

Ellone barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "He always was. Annoyingly so."

One side of Laguna's mouth tugged upwards. "What's he like?"

She paused, wondering whether to describe the Squall she had known for the last three years, or the last few weeks. "Serious. Kind of quiet. Thinks a lot. He's more like Raine than you, I guess."

"Raine…" He wiped the beginnings of a tear away from the corner of his eye. "I never remarried, you know. Don't think I ever could. If I could change one thing about my life, I wish I'd been with her when she died. Did she... did she think I'd left her for good?" His eyes met hers, and she saw how afraid he was of her answer.

"No. She always trusted you, no matter what the townsfolk said about you. She… she was calling for you when she died. I was with her."

Laguna's brows knotted together. "Why were _you_ there?"

Ellone cursed inwardly at her oversight. What reason would Raine's four-year-old neighbor have to be present when she was giving birth? "My mom went next door to help as soon as Raine went into labor," she improvised. "She had to bring me because my dad was working." Laguna nodded distractedly, his eyes still dark with pain.

"I'm so sorry we couldn't save her. She kept bleeding after the birth, and we couldn't stop it. We didn't have the knowledge or the equipment…" The last part was entirely true. She tried to block out the sudden flood of memories, of Raine's pale face as her eyes closed for the last time, of the blood that just kept coming, of Squall's ear-splitting cries from his brand-new lungs…

"It's not for you to apologize, Ellone. If I'd been able to bring her to Esthar, or even back to Deling…"

"Don't torment yourself with 'ifs'. Please, Laguna. You were sent away to war. It wasn't anybody's fault. It just wasn't."

"I... Yeah." They sat in silence for a while, Laguna's eyes never leaving Squall's photo.

"Have you been happy here? In Esthar?"

He looked surprised at her question. "Yeah, sure, I've… I've kept myself busy, you know? I've been… useful. And for me, that's something. That's good enough."

He glanced back at the image of his son. "How about the kid? Squall? Would you say he's happy?"

"He's the happiest I've ever seen him," she answered truthfully. "He's got a good life in Deling. It helps that he has a _very_ devoted girlfriend." Laguna blinked at this, and she added slyly, "Who, you may be interested to know, is the daughter of Julia Heartilly."

Laguna jerked upright and narrowed his eyes at her. "Okay, how did you-"

Ellone kept her face carefully innocent. "How did I what?"

Laguna attempted to engage her in something of a stare-off, and Ellone tried to stop herself from smirking; she knew without a doubt that she would win. His eyes scanned her face intently, and she met them with a practiced blankness.

"I thought you might be interested in the information that your future daughter-in-law had a rather famous mother, that's all."

He regarded her with deep suspicion. "Hmm. That's all, huh?"

"It is," she replied sweetly.

A smile spread slowly across his face. "Gods help anyone who underestimates you. I might look at you and still see the little girl who put jam in my shoes, but you've obviously developed more sophisticated ways to torment people since then."

"I can neither confirm or deny that, Uncle Laguna." She grinned in response, extremely pleased that the jam incident had carried over to this reality.

Laguna laughed. "Hey, less of the 'Uncle'," he protested, then cocked his head and thought it over. "Actually, you know what? I kind of don't mind. Go ahead."

"I will. Thanks."

His eyes settled back on the photo of Squall, and his brow furrowed slightly. "Y'know, when you said 'future daughter-in-law'... Sounds like a serious relationship for a twenty-year-old."

She smiled to herself. "I don't think there's much left in the universe that can tear those two apart."

"That... seems like an odd thing to say."

"Does it?"

He gave her that searching look again, and she decided to change the subject. "Tell me about Kiros and Ward. How are they doing?"

Laguna folded his arms, leaning back in the chair. "I can't believe you remember all this stuff about me. Even the names of my friends. You've got one hell of a good memory."

"Yeah, well… Me and memory… it's kind of my thing." She gave a crooked smile.

* * *

As the dusk was settling in, Ellone wove through the throng of shoppers in the merchants' district, which was pleasingly low-tech in comparison to the Esthar she knew. She had always found the electronic shopping panels to be rather cold and impersonal. Here, in stark contrast, people were chatting, haggling, laughing, offering her samples of their wares. She sniffed a vial of perfume - a strong, heady scent - and continued on her way to the food markets.

Since their meeting at the _Esthar Guardian_ , she had spent every evening since with Laguna, either out to dinner or at his apartment, which was barely bigger than her own in Deling. They had talked incessantly about Squall and Raine, Esthar, Winhill and Galbadia; about Laguna's current and past investigations, and about Ellone's potential job prospects after returning home. Laguna was adamant that there was something more suitable out there for her than waitressing. She'd shrugged, but hoped he was right. He had laughed and accused her of mothering him when she'd examined the contents of his fridge and interrogated him about his eating habits; she eventually concluded that he was taking decent care of himself. Without the Palace chefs' cuisine on hand he was certainly thinner, but here, he was independent and responsible for his own health, and she soon began to realize that he was happier like this. Laguna had often complained of feeling like a child as President, constrained by a myriad of schedules and protocol, rarely allowed to make a single decision for himself about how he spent his time. While he was no longer rich nor powerful in this new life, he had made immeasurable gains in terms of fulfillment and freedom, and Ellone knew that she need not worry about him as she had before.

On her ninth day in Esthar, Laguna had given her a letter to hand to Squall. He had frowned down at the envelope, suddenly nervous. "Elle, I'll leave it up to him what he wants to do, but... well, I hope he'll meet me, one day."

"I think he will, Uncle Laguna. But knowing Squall, he'll take his time."

When she had asked Laguna about his old friends, he had revealed that Ward was working as a janitor at North Esthar Hospital, where he'd met and married a nurse, who Laguna said had been one of the informants in his recent investigative piece on imbalances in the healthcare system. Kiros, on the other hand, was - to Ellone's quiet amazement - now the proprietor of a highly successful fish market in the mercantile quarter. "He missed his blades too much," Laguna had explained, "and slicin' up fish was the next best thing. Turned out he's the best in the whole country at it. You should drop by and say hi. He's heard me talk about you."

The fish market occupied a large section of the food area of the merchants' quarter, and Ellone was immediately impressed by the size and variety of seafood on display. Kiros, slim, dark and catlike as ever, stood at the center of the main stall, deftly slicing a large Centran tuna into thin slivers to be eaten raw. He looked up and spoke to an elderly gentleman, who handed him a large sum of gil, and Ellone watched Kiros carefully pack the sashimi slices on a bed of ice and into a square metal container. The customer thanked him and left, and Ellone found herself near the front, Kiros' keen eyes gazing into her own.

"How may I help you, madam?"

She floundered in the face of his polite unrecognition. "Er... Kiros?"

He paused only for an instant before correctly deducing her identity. "Miss Oakwright, one would presume?"

"One would presume correctly." Ellone smiled. She had always loved Kiros' formal speech patterns, and was glad that life on a market stall had not dulled his sharp sense of decorum.

"Laguna said you might pay me a visit. It's an honor to meet you." He took her hand, and Ellone grasped his slender brown fingers, masking her joyful recognition of his touch. "I must say, your news was... well, you dropped quite the bombshell on him."

"Yes, I... He's taken it well, though."

"Indeed. There's a light in his eyes again that I haven't seen for a long while."

He didn't need to say it; Ellone knew what he meant. _Since Raine was alive._ She nodded gladly. Laguna had already admitted to her that the knowledge that a part of Raine was alive and walking around in Deling City was life-changing for him. She hoped, fervently, that Squall would allow his father into his life in the same way that he had slowly begun to in her own world.

"Although..." Kiros' lips tugged upwards. "The idea of another Laguna out there somewhere fills me with a certain sense of dread."

"Oh, you needn't worry in that respect, Kiros. He very much takes after his mother."

"I'm relieved to hear that." Another customer was trying to catch his attention, and he excused himself. Ellone passed the time by examining the catch of the day, and when Kiros returned to speak to her, she announced her intention to buy something.

"Personally I'd recommend the swordfish," said a tall, broad shouldered young man standing next to her.

Ellone tilted her head up, and was met with a cocky grin and pair of blue-green eyes she knew very well. Fifteen years ago, those eyes had begged her to read stories, laughed with her; she'd wiped away their tears on more than one occasion. The man was dressed smartly in a crisp white shirt and tailored grey business slacks, and his blond hair was swept away from his forehead, which bore a long diagonal scar running in the opposite direction to Squall's. Ellone knew her mouth had dropped open, and did her best to close it and return his smile. _Of all the people… I definitely didn't expect you, Seifer._

Kiros raised an eyebrow sardonically. "Mr. Almasy, being one of my regulars doesn't make you an expert. The swordfish are at the end of their season, and aren't at their best right now."

Seifer shrugged amiably. "They're by far the coolest-looking, though." He offered his hand to Ellone, who shook it in a slight daze. "Seifer Almasy, fish coolness expert."

She recovered her voice, and giggled. "Do you put that on your business card?"

"Nope, my card says 'hotshot international lawyer'." His eyes twinkled at her.

Kiros cleared his throat pointedly. "If you're going to hit on my customers, could you at least wait until she's purchased something?"

"Certainly can." Ellone was treated to another flash of those even white teeth.

Ellone hovered over Kiros' stall a little longer, all the while aware of Seifer's larger-than-life presence looming behind her. After eventually purchasing three packets of dried shrimp to use in soup stock, and bidding farewell to Kiros, she walked over to where Seifer was standing, and grinned up at him.

"So, Mr. Hotshot."

"Seifer'll do."

"Seifer. You're going to take me out for a coffee, right?"

"Nah." Seifer's smirk broadened at her affronted expression. "It's after four p.m on a Friday. In my world, that's beer o'clock. Or wine, depending on your preference."

_This is going to get interesting._ Ellone linked her arm through his and smiled her acceptance of his invitation. "Lead the way, then."


	11. Chapter XI

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter XI**

"Then he gave me this, for you."

Ellone held out the envelope entreatingly, and Squall stared at it as if it might burst into flames at any moment. "Well?" she prompted.

He blinked, and took it in his fingers, turning it over to read his own name in Laguna's spidery writing on the front. He looked up into the expectant eyes of his sister and girlfriend, and said carefully, "I'd prefer to read this when I'm alone, if you don't mind."

Rinoa gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile and laid a palm on his forearm. "Of course." She snuggled back into Ellone's faded blue sofa, and turned to face her host, who was still unpacking her suitcase on the living room floor. "Did you see Kiros and Ward as well?"

Ellone pulled out a crumpled white blouse and attempted to shake the creases out. "I didn't have a chance to meet Ward, but Kiros owns a fish market - if you can believe that - and I went there to check it out. That's where I met… someone else."

"Who?"

Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the blouse, she said quietly, "Seifer." Ellone glanced up to gauge Rinoa's reaction, then grinned at Rinoa's open-mouthed astonishment. "He was adopted into an Esthari family. He graduated from law school last year. Seems he's doing pretty well for himself."

"Wow." Rinoa tried to picture Seifer in her mind; she hadn't seen him since their fateful final encounter in the Lunatic Pandora, when he'd been ragged, desperate and half-crazed. "Does he have the scar?"

"He does, and it looks recent too. Said it was a sports injury. He's on the Esthar Bar Association's amateur fencing team." She gave a chuckle at Rinoa's awestruck face. "I didn't ask him exactly when it happened, but I'd put a hundred gil on it being the same day as Squall's little mishap with the saw blade."

Something seemed to click for Squall, and he gawped at Ellone. "You mean _that_ guy? The guy who-"

Ellone rose up defensively. "He's completely different, though. He _is!_ He's like he used to be when we were kids, only more mature now, obviously. He's a lot calmer." A faint, pink flush crept up her cheeks. "And _really_ charming. I mean Rin, you can understand that, right?"

Squall arched an eyebrow at his girlfriend. "What does that mean? That _you_ can understand it?"

Rinoa shot a quick glare at Ellone before answering. "All right. I had a brief - _brief!_ \- infatuation with him when I was sixteen." Squall blinked at her admission. "Obviously I never saw him in quite the same way after he practically electrocuted you to death," she added sourly, remembering how horrified she'd been to learn the full extent of Seifer's betrayal.

"He - what!?"

"We didn't show him that one, Rin," said Ellone in a low voice.

Rinoa could have kicked herself. _Of course._ Squall's experiences at D-district prison happened to him alone, so naturally weren't featured in either of their memories. She hadn't meant to ever tell him about it. There were some things a person was better off not knowing, she thought, and being tortured by a former classmate was one of them.

"Seifer did a lot of things under Ultimecia's influence that you could never forgive," said Ellone solemnly. "But we never actually determined how much free will he had at the time. He went underground after it all happened. I was in favor of tracing him and exonerating him, and so was Quisty to an extent, but you held your ground." She turned her eyes away, seemingly uncomfortable under her brother's intense gaze. "Anyway, none of that matters anymore, does it? The Seifer I met didn't do any of those things. He's… he's a really good guy." Rinoa watched in amusement as the flush spread from Ellone's cheeks to the tops of her ears.

Squall fixed his sister with a knowing look. "You're involved with him, aren't you?"

Ellone fidgeted with her hands, and didn't reply. Rinoa let out a whoop of delight. "Oh my god! You _are_! You and Seifer!"

"No! Well… Sort of."

"Sort of yes?"

Ellone buried her face in her fingers and admitted defeat. "Oh okay, yes."

Squall's expression was skeptical. "How's that going to work if he lives in Esthar?"

"I don't know. Maybe it won't. He comes to Deling on business fairly often, though. He's coming in two weeks. I've promised to meet him."

"In his hotel room?"

Ellone slammed the suitcase shut, scowling. "Oh shut up, Squall."

Rinoa waggled her eyebrows at Squall. "Definitely in his hotel room."

"You can shut up as well."

"Aww, Elle, don't be mad! I think it's nice. Kind of weird, though. I mean, _Seifer_."

" _You_ think it's weird!" Ellone exploded. "I used to wash his sheets after his night-time accidents! How do you think _I_ feel?" She visibly cringed and smoothed her hair down self-consciously.

Squall's smirk grew as he folded his arms. "You know, I think there's a name for that sort of thing."

Ellone glared at him. "What? Bed-wetting?"

"Nah. I meant cradle-robbing."

This made Ellone splutter with indignation. "He's three years younger than me! _Three!_ "

"All right." Squall held his hands up, then snickered and added, "Old lady."

Ellone reached forward, seized his ear and attempted to twist it. "I used to change your bedsheets too, don't forget that, you brat!" she snarled, and Rinoa marveled at the transformation of her normally sweet face.

"Not in this universe, Sis. Oww!" She released his ear, and he rubbed it vigorously.

Rinoa, feeling that they were getting sidetracked, asked, "So was he in the orphanage here, too? Does he know the others?"

Ellone quickly regained her usual exterior calm. "It seems so. He was raised by Matron and Cid down in Centra until he was adopted when he was seven. He's still in touch with Matron and a few others from the orphanage. I didn't get names, but I'm sure it's them. He mentioned a pro martial artist, a guy who joined the G-Army, a girl who moved to Trabia, and another high-profile lawyer in Deling who he's never managed to win a case against. Says she drove him mad when they were kids and the stakes are even higher now. I was certain he was talking about Quisty. It's got to be."

Rinoa reeled. The Quistis she'd seen in the street, a lawyer? She had certainly looked the part. "I'd love to see them battling out in court. That's such a strange image."

Ellone's smile was tentative. "Well, we… If I get the information out of him, we could find them all, Rin. If you want."

It was an enticing idea, but Rinoa felt a host of reservations tugging at her. "Maybe I don't need to meet them. Just knowing they're safe, and living normal lives, maybe that's enough." She believed what she was saying, and yet... She shook her head in an attempt to chase the temptation away. "What about his posse? They must have found each other, surely?"

"Oh, you mean Fujin and Raijin? I saw them in a photo on his dresser. His best friends from Esthar International High School, apparently. They both joined the Esthari police force. I think he said Fujin just got made a junior detective."

"Wow. A lawyer and two cops... Definitely a step up from the Garden Disciplinary Committee." Rinoa had very little anger left for Seifer, now; it had been a lifetime ago, after all. She was glad, she decided, to hear that he was happy and successful, in a world where the allure of Ultimecia's power had never twisted his mind.

"Squall, are we boring you?" Ellone asked rather sharply, and Squall's eyes wandered back from a lengthy examination of her bookcase.

"Only moderately. So have you told him what you told me? Showed him your memories?"

"No. I'm not going to. It's different to how it was with you, Squall. How could I ever tell him that he nearly destroyed the whole world?"

"Isn't it weird, being with him and hiding the fact that you already know him?" Rinoa wondered.

"It is, a little. But Rin, I... Well, I've decided it's time for a fresh start. It's taken me a while, but I guess I've accepted that what's important is what we have right now." Ellone gave a small, private smile. "I said that to you once before, Squall. At the Lunar Base. You'd think I would have listened to myself. But this time, I think I'm finally ready to let the past go."

She made a little nod, to herself more than anyone else, then fixed Rinoa with a smile that had a curious freshness to it, as if she'd cast off an old shadow to find unexpected light underneath. "Rin. You and I made this world happen. We deserve to find our place in it, don't you think?"

Rinoa tried to think what that meant for her, as she felt Squall's fingers curl around her own in some unspoken encouragement. _My place... my place._

* * *

Rinoa lay sprawled on Squall's sofa, her socked feet dangling over the end, watching him clean up the aftermath of her largely successful attempt at making dinner. She still found a great thrill in the novelty of seeing him tackle mundane tasks like washing the dishes. While the old Squall's experiences of food had rarely strayed outside the confines of Balamb Garden's cafeteria, this one had learned how to pitch in with the non-stop cooking and cleaning at Winhill's pub before he even started school.

He turned around, the damp dish towel slung over his shoulder, and met her eyes with a sheepish smile.

"Just checking you were still awake."

"I've been admiring the view."

The dish towel landed with a soft splat on her midriff, and she giggled and threw it back at him. He shot her a mock glare, finished stacking the last few items and then came over to join her on the sofa, lifting up her knees so he could sit with her legs across his lap.

Rinoa hesitated before broaching the topic of Laguna's letter. She had refrained from asking Squall to show her its contents, much as she was curious.

"Are you going to write back to Laguna?"

"Yeah." He stroked her foot absent-mindedly. "I've almost finished my reply. It'll be a hell of a lot thinner than what he sent me, though. The guy wrote three whole pages just with stories about my m- ...About Raine." Squall looked up at the ceiling. "Ahh, this is... confusing."

"I know it must be strange for you to think of them as your parents."

Squall's jaw clenched. "Look, my dad is Steven Oakwright. That won't ever change. But maybe Laguna and I can… I don't know. I guess I don't mind meeting him at some point. The way he writes, he seems... sincere, at least." He rubbed at his scar, where the last of the scab was threatening to fall off; Rinoa fought a compulsion to pull it cleanly away for him.

"Do you want to go to Esthar?" she asked gently.

"I don't know about that. We can't ever meet on Galbadian soil, though, unless he decides he's ready to face a court-martial." His eyes flicked to hers, and she felt his unspoken implication. _It would be my father, ultimately, who would decide Laguna's fate, if it ever came to that._

"How about Elle's idea? That you could meet each other halfway, in Balamb or FH? I'll go with you, if you want."

"Maybe," he replied, his expression clouded with ambivalence. "Let me just write to him for a while first."

Squall glanced up at the wall clock. "Ellie said she'd be round after nine."

"Hm? Yeah, I know."

He gestured to the opened buttons on her blouse. "You're still looking a little indecent from earlier."

"Oh." She started to fasten the lowest button, then Squall took over; except his hands did not stay focused on the task, and soon she was entangled underneath him on the sofa, completely lost in a series of increasingly heated kisses. Squall pulled away reluctantly at the sound of the doorbell, and deftly finished buttoning her up. "To be continued," he promised as he rose from the sofa to greet Ellone, and Rinoa hurriedly rearranged her hair, trying to dampen her gleeful excitement to socially acceptable levels.

Ellone strode into the living room, and eyed Rinoa with amused disapproval. "Rin, you could've at least made an effort to pretend you two weren't making out just now."

Rinoa felt her cheeks flush and protested, "This _is_ me trying to pretend-"

"Ha! Knew it." Ellone sunk down onto the sofa with a self-satisfied grin.

"I think you walked straight into that one, Rin," Squall commented quietly as he emerged from the kitchen, the aroma of brewing coffee following in his wake. "Are we to assume that your aggressively good mood is a result of Seifer being in town? Why aren't you with him now, anyway?"

"He's got a late meeting tonight. I wanted to tell you that I'm going to Centra with him at the weekend. To the orphanage."

Rinoa sat up straight. "Really? He's taking you there?"

"Seifer visits to check up on Matron every couple of months. She's running the place alone and he's worried about her. I asked to go with him this time."

"Alone? What happened to Cid?"

Ellone frowned and picked at a loose thread on Squall's sofa cushion. "Apparently he moved to Balamb to work as a schoolteacher about seven years ago."

"He left her?" Rinoa turned to Squall in shock; he looked at her blankly and returned to the kitchen to tend to the coffee.

Ellone shook her head. "No, I think it was out of necessity. They're not divorced. Cid sends all his salary down south to keep the orphanage going. I wasn't surprised when Seifer told me, to be honest. They've got form for this kind of thing, haven't they? Misguided reasons for living apart, poor financial decisions... Anyway, Seifer's not happy about it. He keeps trying to offer Matron his own money, but she won't take it. He thinks she's working herself into the ground." She tucked her hair behind her ears and said with resolve, "I want to see for myself. Do something to help her, if I can. She might not know me, but she's still... Well, she's still my Matron."

* * *

Seifer offered his hand to her as she stepped onto the swaying metal ramp that connected the ferry to the jetty; Ellone ignored him and skipped down with a nimble grace that only one who spent her formative years on board a ship could possess. He scowled, and strode ahead to catch her up as they reached the wooden boardwalk of the dock, wet with sea spray.

"I was being a gentleman, you know."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not an old lady, Seifer." Ellone seethed silently at her brother. Squall's insult still rankled.

Seifer slung her a sidelong glance as they walked towards the taxi rank, the fresh sea air giving way to familiar Centran humidity. "You're hard work sometimes," he muttered.

She smiled beguilingly in return. _And that's what you like about me, isn't it?_ She was quite sure by now that even in this reality Seifer couldn't resist a challenge, and his interest would likely wane as soon as he wasn't the one doing the chasing.

A dented taxi pulled up, and Seifer greeted the white-haired driver by name. They shuffled into the back seat with their bags, and Ellone looked away from Seifer, watching the scenery of her memories flit by the car's windows. There were a few more houses, tucked away here and there along the coastline, but the landscape was the one seared into her subconscious, and when the lighthouse came into view, she had to choke down an unexpected sob.

Seifer paid the fare; she noticed that he added a generous tip. He took both their bags on his broad shoulders, and Ellone decided to let him have this moment of chivalry without argument. "This is the place," he told her, but she hardly heard it as she gazed up at Edea's orphanage, tears threatening to prick at her eyes.

The stone building that stood before her was no longer the desolate, crumbling ruin of a lost childhood. It was infused with the warmth of being lived in and well-loved, patched up and repaired in a never-ending cycle through the years. It was a home. Once, it had been hers, and she silently greeted it with the reverence it deserved.

Six children were playing out in front, and as she and Seifer approached, Ellone's breath hitched in recognition: there was no doubt that the eldest two, a boy and girl both of around eight years old, were Joey and Crysta, who had lived with her on the White SeeD ship. When the vessel had been disbanded three years ago after the war against Ultimecia, its crew absorbed into the ranks of the Garden SeeDs, the two children had become junior cadets at Balamb. Ellone had missed them with a gut-wrenching intensity. Squall and Quistis had kept her updated on their progress, but on her final visit to Garden shortly before Rinoa's descent into madness, the pair were two semesters into GF junctioning, and no longer recognized her. She'd cried bitterly and raged at Squall for allowing the use of GFs on such young children; he'd shrugged and said that was the way it had always been.

The two youngest, little more than toddlers, were playing in the sand with several battered old pieces of cookware, while the elder four were crouched over an intricate arrangement of sticks, pebbles and shells. Joey looked up, and his face broke into a delighted smile as he pelted towards them.

"Seifer!" He hurtled into the man's broad arms, and one of the little ones wobbled over and grabbed hold of Seifer's leg, beaming up at him with adoration.

"Hi, squirt. Where's Matron?"

"Cookin'." The boy shot a blank glance up at Ellone. "Who're you?"

His face was broader now, more mature, but she could still see traces of the infant she used to cradle in her arms. Joey had arrived on the ship at fifteen months old. He'd been an appalling sleeper, and she had spend countless nights pacing around the deck, carrying him in a makeshift sling.

"I'm Elle. Can I see what you're making?"

He sneaked a look at Seifer, who responded with a broad grin of encouragement and bent down to attend to the toddler who was clinging to him. "Yeah, okay." Ellone followed Joey over to where the other three were watching with wary curiosity, and kneeled down to examine their creation.

"It's the intercontinental railroad between Timber and Balamb. Then this bit goes up to Deling City," Crysta explained, and Elle nodded approvingly at the carefully laid out sticks imitating the railroad tracks, and the assortment of shells that represented the capital city.

"It's looking great. Hey, you should add the Fisherman's Horizon line next. I can help you get started on the Horizon Bridge, if you want." She picked up a handful of twigs. "I just rode on it a couple of weeks ago, so it's pretty fresh in my memory."

"You went on the FH line? We only know it 'cause it's in Matron's atlas. Have you been on the Balamb line too?" asked Joey, clearly impressed.

She started to lay the sticks down in a pattern, making them trail away from the Balamb-shaped mass of pebbles."Oh yeah, loads of times. I-"

"Elle." She looked over her shoulder, and Seifer's keen eyes were fixed on her with impatient amusement. "First things first. Let's go and introduce you to Matron."

"I'll come back and help later," Ellone promised. She stood, and let Seifer lead her into the house. He ducked his head to fit his tall frame under the rounded archway, the kitchen door wedged open with a rusted cast-iron kettle.

The woman at the kitchen counter turned at their footsteps, and her soft features melted into a smile that radiated affection and maternal pride.

"Welcome home." Edea walked towards Seifer, arms outstretched, and he bent down to kiss her on the cheek.

Feeling intrusive, Ellone averted her eyes and took in the appearance of the room. With the pot of vegetable broth bubbling on the stove, the mingling scents of that distinctive blend of Centran herbs Edea always liked to use, the cheerful embrace of the orphanage kitchen was just as comforting it had been twenty years ago. The only signs that told Ellone she was not standing in the midst of one of her beloved memories were the white streaks in Edea's hair, the tired lines on her face, and the fact that the Seifer standing beside her was not an infant, but a young, strong man.

Edea stepped back from Seifer and turned kind, curious eyes onto Ellone. "You must be Ellone. Welcome."

Ellone offered her hand, and relished the familiar coolness of the older woman's skin as Edea shook it. "It's nice to meet you, Matron. Excuse me, I mean Mrs. Kramer."

"You're welcome to call me Matron, dear. Everyone else does."

* * *

When Ellone returned outside to fulfill her promise of building the Horizon Bridge, she found that it had already been constructed, so she set about laying the foundations of a model of Esthar, choosing a large, iridescent mother-of-pearl shell to serve as the Presidential Palace. Crysta interrogated her on the layout of the city, and she answered as best she could. She snuck away later to assist Edea with cooking the evening meal, and found that after a few pleasantries, she and her former foster mother soon settled into a companionable silence as they chopped and peeled.

Edea set a heavy frying pan onto the stovetop. "Ellone dear, would you mind getting a-"

"Oh, of course, Matron." Without thinking, she reached into a drawer on her right and retrieved a metal spatula, then bent down to the lower cupboard to locate a sticky glass bottle of sunflower oil. When she handed the items to Edea, the older woman's eyes were boring into hers with a familiar intensity.

"It appears there's no need for me to explain myself."

"I... ah. I just assumed. Was that what you wanted?"

"Yes, dear. Thank you." She poured the oil into the frying pan, standing back as it sizzled and popped, and her inquisitive gaze slid over to Ellone a few more times before the meal was ready.

Edea retired to her room early after dinner, much earlier than Ellone could remember her doing, but Joey told Seifer that "Matron goes to bed before we do, now." Seifer's small frown indicated that this was new information for him, too.

"Well, tonight we're bunking in with you, so I'm going to put the boys to bed, and Elle'll be in charge of the girls' room. Right, Elle?"

"Right." She nodded her confirmation, and was pleased to see Crysta's mouth twitch into a secret smile. Later, after a chaotic attempt at a board game and several mugs of warm milk, she brushed the teeth of the youngest girl, Millie, and helped her into her pajamas, and let Crysta explain who slept where.

There were three empty beds in the girls' bedroom; one, Ellone was thankful to see, was the bed she had slept in as a child. She dimmed the light and crawled into the bed, noticing that it still creaked in the exact same place, and started to tell a story about a family of seagulls who lived in the lighthouse, a tale that Selphie and Quistis had loved and added multiple embellishments to, all those years ago. Millie's loud snores soon drowned out the story, and Crysta's quiet voice came from the bed opposite.

"It's alright if you stop now, Elle. I don't mind."

"Okay. Good night, sweetie."

"Good night."

Ellone turned her head on the pillow and listened to the shallow breathing of two pairs of small lungs, sounds that had been the backdrop to every night of her life until leaving the ship. The feeling of _home_ hit her squarely in the chest, almost pushing the air out of her. She felt it here more than she ever could in Deling, Winhill, or Esthar. It cradled her and soothed her, and she let it carry her into a deep sleep.

* * *

After breakfast the next morning, Seifer chased the children out of the kitchen and down to the beach, their shrieks quickly fading out of earshot. Ellone stacked the plates and carried them to the sink, gesturing to Edea to stay seated.

Edea made a half-hearted attempt to resist, then smiled in defeat and slumped back in her chair. "Thank you, dear."

Ellone returned to the table for the cups. "It must be an awful lot of work for one person."

Edea passed her own teacup to Ellone with a nod of appreciation. "When my husband and I were still running this place together, it was certainly less tiring... but I was younger then. I had more energy. These bones are growing older, my dear." She smoothed over a frayed hole in the skirt of her long black dress. "And circumstances have changed for the children, too. In Seifer's day, we took on war orphans. Now that we live in times of peace, it is poverty that brings children here. They are not all orphans. Five of the six who are with me now still have at least one living parent, either incapable or unwilling to care for them. The troubles that such children bring with them are more complex. I fear that I am not able to give them what they need. As the years pass, I can offer less and less."

Ellone paused and laid the cups on the counter. "Are you... sick?"

Edea's smile was rueful. "No, dear girl. Simply tired. In all truth, Cid and I had always planned to close this place by now. But as long as there are children who need me, I will continue."

Ellone washed the breakfast dishes in silence, deep in thought. When she had finished, Crysta was standing in the doorway, holding Millie's hand.

"Matron, Millie wants a story."

Edea sighed gently, and began to rise from her seat, but Ellone cut across the room and said with a bright smile, "I could read one, if you like. Will you show me what books you have?"

Crysta slipped her other hand into Ellone's and guided her to the reading corner of the living room, two shelves densely packed with far more books than Ellone remembered seeing at the orphanage as a child; certainly many more than they had been able to collect and keep on board the ship. She slid out a battered copy of _The Very Confused Malboro,_ remembering how she had used it to teach Crysta to read. "How about this one? _There once was a Malboro, who was completely, utterly, and totally confused..._ "

Millie listened happily, pointing at the mass of green tentacles on the page, and after Ellone read the last line, Crysta gave her a solemn look and asked, "Elle? Are you Seifer's girlfriend?"

Ellone reflected on this for a moment. "Probably not. Let's go with 'Seifer's friend' for now."

Crysta nodded, filing away this information. "Can you read another one?" She retrieved a colorful paperback titled _MiniMog Goes to Cactuar Island_ from the bottom shelf. "It's her favorite."

Millie's face lit up for the duration of the story, and she squeezed Ellone's fingers with her chubby hand in appreciation when it was finished. Ellone smiled at her, then caught the eyes of Seifer, who was leaning languidly in the doorway; she didn't know how long he'd been there. Edea was standing behind him, a serene expression on her face.

"Come, girls. I believe some of the strawberries are ready for picking. We can share them with our guests this afternoon."

Crysta excitedly herded Millie out of the reading room, and Edea strained to pick up the younger girl, carrying her on one hip, holding out her other hand for Crysta to take. With a smile at Seifer that hid a message Ellone could not quite decipher, Edea left with the two children.

Seifer crossed the floor and sunk down next to Ellone on the cushions, snatching the picture book out of her hands. He flipped it over and examined the cover art, smiling.

"You do a mean Jumbo Cactuar voice."

"I've had years of experience."

"Oh, yeah. Three younger brothers, right?"

She gave an ambiguous shrug, and he returned the book to the shelf. It did not escape Ellone's notice that he knew from memory exactly which spot it had come from.

He held Ellone's eyes with a gaze that told her that playtime was over; he wanted answers. "So why is it you were so keen to come here?"

"I wanted to see the place you grew up in, I guess. I thought your Matron sounded like a remarkable woman."

"She certainly is. I'm a lucky man, to have two amazing moms."

"Mm." She smiled, picturing Mrs. Oakwright's face alongside Edea's. _I know the feeling, Seifer._

Seifer leaned closer, his mouth set in a serious line. "But Elle, there's something else going on here, isn't there?"

"Yeah. There is." _I couldn't ever tell you the half of it, but..._ "Have you ever been somewhere, and just felt like you belonged there?"

"Sure." He grinned. "Pretty much everywhere I go."

She rolled her eyes in response. "Excuse me for forgetting that the world is Seifer Almasy's oyster. But for us lesser mortals, it's just the one place. And I think... this might be mine."

Seifer folded his arms and stared at her without blinking. "Are you saying you want to stay here or something?"

"I never wanted to be a waitress for the whole of my life, and, well… I feel like I could be useful here."

"It's not the kind of decision that should be taken lightly. Matron works damned hard."

Ellone returned his gaze with defiance. "I can see that, Seifer. And I'm perfectly capable of working hard, too."

He looked at her carefully, studying her face, and Ellone knew after a few moments that she had somehow passed his test.

"All right. If you want to offer your help to Matron, you have my blessing."

"Good." She almost told him that she didn't need his blessing, then was interrupted by the realization that she wanted it. Seifer's opinion had come to mean something to her; when had that happened? "I won't let you down. You, her, or the children."

* * *

They were in the kitchen, enjoying a quiet, adults-only coffee while the children played after lunch.

"Feet off the chair please, Seifer," chided Edea mildly, and Ellone snickered quietly at the contrite expression on Seifer's face as he rearranged his long legs into a more respectful position. Seifer clearly didn't need to be a Knight to be firmly under Edea's thumb.

Her own coffee finished, Ellone took out a mesh strainer from the back of the cupboard to use on the soggy grounds, so that they could be added to the Edea's composting system. She turned round when she was done, to be met with two pairs of raised eyebrows.

Edea sipped on her coffee. "My dear girl, that's the third time you've located something in this house without being told where it is."

"Oh… you just have a very logical way of organizing things, Matron."

She set the mug down. "I'm sure it's more than that. I can't shake the feeling that you were meant to be here."

Seifer cocked his head. "That's what Elle thinks too."

Here was her opportunity. She sat down in the chair facing Edea. "I... I'd like to stay. Help out."

Edea's face showed no surprise, only reluctance. "I appreciate your feelings. But I can't pay you, dear. We're barely managing as it is."

"I don't care. If you can give me a bed and let me share the food - and I'll help to grow it, of course - that's more than enough."

"It shouldn't be. You're a young woman with every opportunity in front of you."

"And this is the one that's right for me." Ellone bowed her head slightly. "Please give me a chance to prove it, Matron."

Edea's delicate hand reached forwards and stroked her hair, just the way Ellone remembered her doing. "If that's how you truly feel, I won't turn you away. But promise me that you'll take a few days to think it over, as carefully as possible."

"I will." She clasped Edea's hand.

Seifer, who had been fidgeting throughout the exchange, stood abruptly.

"Elle, a word. Excuse us, Matron." He gestured to the archway, and she followed him out into the garden.

"What?" she asked, arms crossed.

He was watching her with narrowed eyes. "You don't have to do this for me, you know."

She nearly gasped at his arrogance. "You think I'm doing this for you? I'm doing this for _me._ This is where I need to be. I want to help. What makes you think it's about you?"

He shrugged, his eyes locked intently onto hers. "Women tend to do pretty stupid things to impress me."

"I _see,_ " Ellone spat. "Because you're rich and successful and I'm a waitress - worse, an unemployed waitress - I must so desperate to hang onto you that I'm moving in with your foster mom to get closer to you." She let out a peal of sarcastic laughter, eliciting a bad-tempered scowl from Seifer.

"Seriously Seifer, get over yourself. If it really bothers you that I'll be here whenever you visit, just let me know in advance and I'll take the kids out for the day so you can have Matron to yourself."

He leaned against the stone wall and glowered at her. "You're a real pain in the ass when you want to be, you know that?"

"Look, I'm not expecting anything from you, alright? This has been fun, but... You'll be in Esthar, and I'll be here. We may as well put a stop to it before it gets too-"

Seifer kicked at a half-loose rock in the soil by his feet. "There's no need to go that far, seeing as I actually _like_ you. For some bizarre reason."

Ellone gave a small smirk. "Well, then."

He made a growling noise and kicked the rock free. "Dammit woman, do I not even get any acknowledgement when I put my feelings on the line?"

She looked at his face, expecting to see anger, and realized with a stab of guilt that there was only hurt and frustration. A question was in his eyes, but he wasn't prepared to risk himself by asking it. She placed a soft kiss on his lips and answered it anyway.

"All right. I like you too, Seifer Almasy."

"About damn time you admitted it."

"It was, wasn't it?" She entwined her fingers in his, and they walked back into the orphanage to join Edea.


	12. Chapter XII

Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Chapter XII**

"But... You'll be so far away."

Squall stood with one hand on his hip, frowning intensely at the jumble of Ellone's possessions spread over her apartment floor.

She barely glanced at him. "It's not that long a journey if you get the ferry from Timber."

"Have you even told our parents?"

The set of his shoulders told Rinoa that he was agitated. She padded over from the sofa and laid a hand gently on the middle of his back. He tensed, then relaxed.

Ellone, oblivious, carried on bundling pairs of socks together into tight balls. "Of course I did. They took it pretty well. Mom even said I can bring the kids up to stay in Winhill during the summer, when Centra gets really hot, and again at Midwinter." She looked up and flashed an excited smile at her brother. "Won't that be great? Then she started going on about something to do with sweater colors, which I didn't really follow."

A sly look crossed Squall's face. "Well. That's something for you to look forward to." He squatted and surveyed the chaos on the floor with a critical eye. "This is a mess, though. You need to approach it systematically."

Ellone's eyebrows shot upwards. "Excuse me? I have a system. Can't you see there are three piles?" She pointed to each indistinct mass of clothes, books and kitchenware in turn. "Send, Sell, and, uh, Storage."

He narrowed his eyes. "'Storage' means 'Squall', doesn't it?"

"Got it in one."

Squall ignored his sister's challenging smirk. "Well, the first thing we need to do is reduce that pile by at least two thirds. There's a limit to how much of your crap I can keep in my apartment."

Rinoa picked up a navy belted woolen coat from the 'Storage' pile and turned it over admiringly. "This is nice."

Ellone gave the coat a cursory glance and started rifling through a pile of books on the floor. "Take it. It's too warm for Centran winters."

"Thanks. I will."

Rinoa sifted through the remaining clothes in the pile and found two sweaters and a scarf that were to her liking. She'd noticed, in her old life, that she and Ellone were of roughly the same height and build, but had never had reason to make anything of it. The fact that their relationship was now close enough to share clothes was a pleasant surprise.

"Squall, do you want…" Ellone was holding a stack of five paperback books, "...this crime series about an alcoholic detective in the far north of Trabia, where the sun only rises for an hour a day in winter-"

He held out a palm. " _Northern Oblivion._ Those are mine anyway. I lent them to you and you never gave them back."

Ellone's forehead creased. "Huh. I would never have guessed that." She started to pass him the books, then withdrew her hands. "Wait a minute. You could say that about literally any item in this apartment, and I'd have no idea if it was true or not."

Squall snorted. "Yeah, right. Like I would go to the trouble to acquire your collection of mindless chick-lit and inferior music." He took the books out of Ellone's hands and flicked through the pages of the novel on top. "Did you even read these?"

"I don't know if the other me did, but I gave up after a couple of chapters. It was just so… _bleak._ "

Squall gave her a withering look. "That's the whole point of Trabian noir thrillers. The bleaker it is, the more high-brow." He glanced at Rinoa, who was making no attempt to hide her amusement. "What?"

"It's fun hearing you turn into a literary critic, that's all. I never saw you reading anything other than Weapons Monthly magazine."

Squall looked somewhat offended. "Was the other me _completely_ uncultured?"

"Yes," replied Ellone flatly, while Rinoa reassured him, "You were just too busy, my love."

Ellone sifted through the pile of books again, then thrust another volume at her brother. "Okay, explain to me why I have _this._ "

Rinoa intercepted, taking the book in her hands to look at it. A cloth-bound hardback, the embossed title read _Principles of Aviation._

Squall shrugged. "Dunno. It's probably Nida's."

At the shocked expressions on Rinoa and Ellone's faces, he added, "The guy you were dating when I first moved here. He was a student at the air force college. What? Do you two know him?"

Rinoa nodded. "He was Balamb Garden's main pilot. That's just... Wow."

" _I_ don't know him!" Ellone protested. "I only met him twice! What was he like? How long was I with him?"

"He was, uh… forgettable? Anyway, you broke up after a couple of months. You didn't seem particularly upset about it."

Rinoa leered at Ellone and poked her in the ribs. "Nida _and_ Seifer, huh."

"Oh, don't start," said Ellone, with a hint of warning in her voice. "We can't all have the luxury of finding the same soulmate in two separate universes." She huffed and returned to sorting through the books.

Rinoa saw that Squall's eyes had slid over to lock onto hers, and she wondered how he felt to hear the word 'soulmate'. She wasn't sure she liked it. It put her in mind of the Sorceress-Knight bond, predestined fate, and all the pain and loss that had brought. No, she didn't need Squall to be her soulmate. Being together in the present was more than enough.

* * *

_A Week Later_

Squall hauled both of Ellone's suitcases up the steps of Deling Central Station, despite his sister's protests. As soon as he set them down at the top, she grabbed the handles out of his hands.

"Elle, why won't you let me-"

"I'll have to carry them both from Timber onwards. So I may as well start getting used to the weight now." She tugged the cases towards her and walked awkwardly into the station. Rinoa could see how hard she was straining to take the load. Not for the first time, she admired Ellone's almost magnificent stubbornness.

"Fine, give yourself a hernia, then," Squall muttered under his breath as he followed her in.

Inside the station, Rinoa gazed up at the signboard above the main ticket gate. Ellone's train was already at the platform, with fifteen minutes until departure.

Ellone fiddled with the strap on one of her suitcases. "I should probably just get on board now. Find a seat. No point waiting around."

Squall half-turned away. Rinoa could see a familiar closed expression on his face. He wasn't ready for this goodbye.

"Elle," she started. "Before you do, I was thinking about something you said. About how Edea used to have a contact in Deling."

Ellone had explained that until a few years ago, an old friend of the Kramers had acted on their behalf in the Galbadian capital, working with adoption agencies to bring new children to the orphanage. The friend had also served as a go-between to help some of the older children to maintain written contact with their birth families. Since her death, the orphanage had been unable to carry out either of these tasks, but Ellone was keen to find a way to restart them.

"I just... Well, I thought it could be me. I mean, maybe I could try."

Ellone was clearly taken aback by Rinoa's words. "I- You know we won't be able to pay you, right?"

"And you know I already have an income, thanks to my mom. I don't care about money. Will you let me try? It's all I've ever wanted, Elle, to do something that helps people. Even if it's something small. Maybe I could make a difference."

The grand dreams she'd had in her youth of liberating Timber were far behind her now, but Rinoa knew she would always yearn to do something meaningful. Ellone's newfound sense of purpose and excitement was infectious, and Rinoa wanted to be part of it.

Ellone stared at her, then smiled. "I think you could. I'll talk to Matron about it. I'll be in touch as soon as I get to Centra."

"Great. Also, I want to make a donation. A sizable one. Tell Matron that, too."

Ellone held up both hands. "No, Rin. I can't take any more of your money."

"Why not? What am I going to spend it on?" she argued.

"Because it's _yours_. Squall, tell her."

Squall leveled a cool gaze at his sister. "I'm not 'telling her' anything. Don't knock a good offer when it comes your way, Elle."

"But-"

He made a faintly exasperated sound. "'Woman attempts to convince wealthy heiress _not_ to donate to struggling orphanage'. Isn't there something wrong with that sentence?"

Ellone's features softened, and she looked at Rinoa with contrition. "I guess when you put it like that... Okay. I... Thanks, Rin." She turned her head to glance at the station clock. "I'd really better go now."

Rinoa embraced her, whispering "take care" in her ear. Squall's brief hug was awkward and pained, and his face clouded over when Ellone slipped out of it all too quickly to grab her suitcases and cross the ticket gate onto the platform. She heaved the cases onto the train, gave an excited wave from inside the train door, then she was gone.

They stood by the ticket gate, neither speaking, until the doors closed and the train slid slowly out of the station. Squall's eyes were blank, lost. Rinoa watched his forlorn gaze follow the dwindling dot of the train, and for one moment he was the little boy from the orphanage, losing his Sis all over again.

"You okay?"

He didn't look at her. "It feels like the day she left Winhill to come and live here. I was still a kid. I cried my eyes out under the quilt that night."

"D'you think that's why you ended up following her?"

Squall tilted his head, considering the question. "Not really. There was no work for me in Winhill. Coming to Deling was natural."

"But you could've gone to Dollet, Timber, Balamb..."

"I guess. Maybe I did need to be near her." He caught her eye and half-smiled. "Damn, I sound pathetic."

Rinoa took his hand. "No, you don't. She's your family. I'm glad you found a way to be together. The other you spent so long crying over her, then your memories of her were taken away. It's been so good to see you two having a real relationship. Watching you bicker... all of it. You're really going to miss her, aren't you?"

He nodded, eyes still on the platform.

"We'll visit her, Squall." She squeezed his hand, and felt him draw closer to her side.

"Yeah."

* * *

_Two Months Later_

Rinoa and Squall's first trip to the orphanage came at the start of the Centran summer, the humidity thick in the air, the sun blazing hot. Rinoa was speechless at the sight of the orphanage, a world away from the desolate ruins she had known before. To Squall, everything was new, and he met it with curious, scrutinizing eyes.

Edea was polite, but more subdued than Rinoa remembered, and had retired to her room not long after their arrival. Ellone had greeted them with delight, bouncing back and forth between the kitchen, the garden and the playroom, children hanging off her at every turn. Seifer was mid-visit, and had introduced himself with the same self-assurance Rinoa remembered from all those years ago in Timber. She wondered for a split second if he would recognize her, if they had somehow crossed paths in this life too. But there was nothing, no hint of familiarity in his eyes. She found herself relieved when his piercing gaze slid back to Ellone's face and stayed there.

When Seifer took the children down to the beach to swim, splash and paddle, Ellone invited Squall and Rinoa to join her in the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal.

"Laguna really appreciates your letters, you know," she told Squall, without turning away from the stovetop. "I'm so glad you're writing to him."

He leaned against the countertop, brushing some crumbs into the sink with one hand. "I suppose that means you've been writing to him too."

"Every week or so. I think I'm going to ask him to visit. He'll be safe from the G-Army here." Ellone paused and snuck a look at her brother's face. "So... Maybe you could be here when-"

"Maybe." He stared at the floor for a long time, then shrugged. "Yeah. All right."

Ellone's eyes shone. "It'll mean the world to him, Squall." She caught Rinoa's smile, and returned it.

"So what do you think of this place?"

"It's amazing," said Rinoa. "Seeing it brought to life like this."

"It is, isn't it? How about you, Squall?"

He ran a finger along the warped frame of the nearest kitchen cupboard, which was swollen with water damage. "It looks like you could use a carpenter around here."

Ellone's eyes glittered dangerously. "Are you offering your services, or just being critical?"

"I'm offering, idiot. Free of charge, of course."

She smiled down at the cooking pot, then placed a lid on it and turned fully to face him. "I'd like that, Squall. A lot. Actually... I wanted to talk to you. Both of you. Matron's started to come around to accepting the idea of retiring and letting me take over officially. And, well... Depending on the number of kids we take on in the future, I might ask you and Rin to come and help me out full-time, if you'd consider it."

Rinoa's mouth fell open. "You mean, live here?"

"I don't mean now. One day. But only if you want to. I can't tell you to leave Deling. It's your home."

Rinoa met Squall's gaze, and saw her own expression reflected in his. There was a gleam of excitement alongside his surprise. A door to new possibilities was swinging open in front of them, and she sensed that he was willing to walk through it.

He kept his expression unreadable to Ellone. "It's not exactly 'home' for me. You were always my biggest tie to Deling, Elle."

She frowned. "What about you, Rin?"

"I don't want to live with my father forever. Honestly, my home is where Squall is. If you want to try, Squall, I..." _We'll try together._ An idea struck her. "Could I bring Angelo, though?"

Ellone let out a laugh. "Of course! The children would love having a dog around."

The conversation was cut short by the arrival of two dripping wet, very sandy children to the kitchen in search of drinks. Ellone shooed them outside after handing over two glasses of homemade lemonade from the fridge. Seifer was next, his damp hair slicked back, a faded beach towel slung round his shoulders.

"Any of that lemonade left for me, Elle?"

"Probably. Get it yourself." She turned back to the sink and started to wash the cooking utensils.

Rinoa suppressed a smirk. The discovery that Ellone had the firm upper hand in her relationship with Seifer had been a delight. She watched him pour himself a drink and crane his head down to say something inaudible to Ellone, who snorted and flicked some of the soap bubbles from the sink at him. Seifer gasped in mock outrage and strode over to the table to sit down, using another chair to prop up his sandy bare feet. Rinoa felt Squall twitch in disapproval as sand trickled over the chair cushion onto the stone floor. Seifer chugged down his lemonade and started to tell Ellone about a water-fight that had taken place at the beach.

Rinoa nudged Squall and quietly asked, "What do you think of him?"

Squall cast a long, measuring look over the oblivious Seifer. "He seems like a good guy, under all the… ego."

"So you don't have an uncontrollable urge to punch him in the face, or something?"

Squall turned to her in amused indignation. "Rinoa, I've never punched anyone in my _life._ " He checked himself and conceded, "Well, okay, other than my brother. And I think the last real fistfight Alex and I had was when we were about thirteen."

They returned to watching Seifer, whose eyes were fixed on Ellone, still standing with her back turned. She bent down to reach something from under the sink, and Squall's expression twisted into a scowl as an unmistakable smirk of possessive appreciation crossed Seifer's lips.

"Admittedly, he does have a highly punchable face," Squall muttered darkly, eliciting a small giggle from Rinoa. "I can see how we would probably have riled each other up, if we grew up together."

"You definitely did."

"What about you?" he asked. "You had a crush on him, right? Any traces of it left?"

"Oh Squall, I was a kid."

Her eyes tracked Seifer as he sprang off the chair, loped over to Ellone's side and with a good-natured grin, started to dry off the dishes she had washed.

"When you're young, it's easy to be attracted to confidence if you don't have much of your own yet," Rinoa reflected. "I've grown up since then. I know myself better now."

"That was unexpectedly insightful," he replied with a small smile. "I'm not entirely sure what it says about my sister, though."

Seifer and Ellone were chatting and laughing together now, almost unaware of Squall and Rinoa's presence on the other side of the room. There was a lightness to Ellone's laugh that Rinoa could not recall hearing before.

"I'm just glad she's having a good time with him. She missed out on all of that, growing up at sea."

Squall stifled a chuckle in his throat. "Funny, because the Ellie I know has had a _lot_ of boyfriends."

They slipped out of the kitchen into the late evening sunshine, leaving Ellone and Seifer to each other's company. The older children were in the process of herding the younger ones back into the house. Rinoa tugged on Squall's hand and led him away from the orphanage building to the expanse out back, in the opposite direction to the beach.

"Where are we going?"

"I want to show you…"

It was still there, untouched and unchanged, bathed in brilliant gold before sunset. The flower field. The perfect meadow of wild blooms, stretching unbroken into the horizon at the end of the world. _Their_ place. Except that it wasn't, not any more. Rinoa watched Squall's eyes taking in the sight as one that was entirely new.

"This is where we made our promise. Well, there were two promises. We said that we'd always be waiting here if we couldn't find each other."

"What was the other promise?"

"You made it to yourself, and didn't tell me about it until much later. It was your oath to be my Knight."

"Oh. Did I keep it?"

Her lips curled into a bitter smile. "You certainly kept it. It's what got you killed, in the end."

He was silent at that. She gazed out over the meadow to the dim, bluish-green hills in the far distance.

"This time, I don't want us to have any promises. I just want us to be… us. One day you might choose to walk away, and I want you to have that choice."

She summoned the courage to meet his gaze, and when she did, his eyes were soft.

"I can't imagine I'll ever want to, Rin."

"Still, I… I want you to know that you can."

"All right. So is that our new promise? To promise not to have any promises?"

She laughed. "I suppose so." She took both his hands in hers. "Squall Leonhart Oakwright, I promise that you and I will be free to be together, or not together, with no oath binding your soul to mine."

"Rinoa…" He stroked her fingers with his thumbs. "There are other ways of binding people together, you know. I didn't need an oath to fall in love with you."

"I..."

"I'm not trapped. I wasn't tricked. I'm here because I want to be. And that's that."

He bent his head to kiss her. _And that's that,_ she thought.

And it was.

* * *

**Epilogue**

_A Year Later_

Edea's retirement party was a lively affair. Seifer, its chief organizer, had reached out to his former foster siblings to give their beloved Matron one last hurrah. Edea spent much of the day smiling through tears that flowed thicker with each arrival: Zell, bearing a huge bouquet of flowers, Quistis, who unloaded a case of champagne from her taxi, Selphie, who brought a box of half-melted cookies, and Irvine, with a smartly-wrapped jewelry box under his arm containing a silver bracelet.

Each of Rinoa's once-friends greeted her and Squall politely, curiously. They had no idea who she was, but Rinoa found that she didn't mind at all. They were all here, together in the same room, and it made her heart sing.

Angelo sniffed at her feet as she cast her eyes over the scene of the playroom, decorated lavishly with paper ribbons and children's drawings. In one corner, Squall was patiently showing one of the older kids how to sand down a piece of wood. Irvine and Selphie were in another corner, deep in conversation, their heads bowed so close together they were almost touching. Seifer was sprawled on a beanbag talking animatedly to Zell, who was laughing loudly, while Ellone was huddled next to Quistis, a sleepy toddler on her lap.

Squall handed over the sandpaper to his young apprentice, and slipped to Rinoa's side. He knelt down to ruffle Angelo's neck.

"Are we staying for good this time?" Rinoa wondered aloud, though she was fairly sure she knew the answer.

He straightened and looked at her. "It's up to you. I'm ready, if you are."

Centra was her place. It held the flower field where she and Squall had found their way to each other after Time Compression. It was the land where she had stepped through a waterfall centuries in the past and brought Squall back to life. Where she had achieved the impossible. It was her place of new beginnings, of hope. Of love.

"I think I'm ready, too."

Two young children dodged Angelo as they ran past, laughing. They were the newest arrivals, and it warmed Rinoa's heart to see how quickly they had settled in. The orphanage was now home to a total of seventeen children. While Ellone was fearsomely capable, she was being stretched in all directions every day. If there was a right time to join her in her life's work, it was now.

"Then we will." Squall watched the children disappear into the playroom, and sidled closer to Rinoa. He bent his head and murmured in her ear.

"Guess you'll be too busy with all these kids for us to have any children of our own."

Rinoa looked up at him, startled. "You mean you want to-"

At her expression, Squall faltered. "Well, yeah, I... I'm from a big family, so I always kind of assumed..." He eyed her seriously and said, "I mean, not if you don't want that, Rin."

"I do want that. I just never expected to hear you say it."

The smile that grew on his face made her tingle.

"We could make it work," she said.

Squall leaned his head on her shoulder. "Think we could."

Angelo shuffled and yawned. Squall's arm had snaked round her waist, and Rinoa searched for a name for the feeling that suffused her.

_Peace._ That was it. She'd known it before, in a handful of tiny, fleeting moments that had slipped away as soon she was aware of them. Yet somehow, peace was hers, pure and lasting; and this time, it was hers to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this story! I hope you enjoyed it. -colobonema

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read this far down, thank you! I appreciate you sticking with me after I callously killed off Squall in the first 150 words. All I will say on that matter is, read on… (enigmatic cough)  
> Anyway. Hello AO3 people! This is a cross-post of a fic I posted on FFN. I’ve been posting over there for about a year but never had an AO3 account until now. I’ll be cross-posting my other stories until I catch up to my WIPs and can start posting new updates simultaneously on both accounts.  
> If you happen to have already read this over there, it’s the same content, just removed some redundant A/Ns.   
> Comments are super welcome! -colobonema


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